Remind Your Clients What Happens When They Stop Exercising

from the Elivate e-zine
Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion…and bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. (Newton’s 1^st Law of Motion)

We all know the benefits of staying active, but sometimes our clients need to be reminded of these benefits (and negative effects) over and over again, before they truly understand just how important persistence and consistency are when it comes working out. I recently read this great article in Outside Magazine by Dan Roe, which reminds us to remind our clients of 5 things that happen when you stop exercising.

When a planned rest day turns into a rest week or a nagging injury keeps you out of the game for longer than anticipated, you expect a little guilt over dropping your exercise habit. But we consulted the experts to break down what happens when workouts grind to a halt and what they have to say may surprise you. It’s okay to take time off, but there are physiological changes that you should be aware of. The good news: while some gains do vanish overnight, most are reversible or don’t take much effort to maintain.

Blood Pressure Rises: In the short term, your blood pressure will change within a day depending on whether you work out or not. “With blood pressure, things happen very quickly, and they also cease very quickly,” says Linda Pescatello, a blood-pressure researcher at the University of Connecticut. Exercise causes increased blood flow, meaning your arteries temporarily widen to facilitate greater circulation. They tend to stay slightly larger for about 24 hours, but if you don’t get your heart rate up within a day, your blood pressure returns to baseline.

Skeletal Muscle Starts Resisting Insulin: When we exercise, our muscles process insulin and absorb the resulting glucose as energy. Reduce that energy expenditure and your muscles will adapt physiologically to become a little less insulin sensitive, says John Thyfault, a researcher at the University of Kansas.

Muscles Shrink: You’re going to get soft and small—and it’ll happen fast. The visible gains you made from a lifting routine will start to diminish within a week of quitting the weights.

VO2 Max Drops: VO2 max—the maximum amount of oxygen you can get into your system—matters because it helps determine your cardio capacity and performance potential.

Grumpiness Takes Over: A single workout, hike, swim, run, or ride almost instantly makes you happier, thanks to a rush of feel-good endorphins. But turn that one afternoon outing into a long-term daily habit and you’ll see bigger mood boosts every time, according to a study in Psychosomatic Medicine. Get out of the habit and your emotional drop will be much steeper, too.

Additionally, staying active may fight anxiety. Michael Otto, a psychologist and professor at Boston University, explains that exercise can mitigate anxiety by firing up your fight-or-flight response, the evolutionary trigger for adrenaline, sweat, and increased heart rate when faced with a challenge. When you stop exercising, your body forgets how to handle stress. Because you’ve allowed your natural fight-or-flight response to atrophy, you’re less likely to experience something tough—whether an interval workout or a stressful workplace relationship, in a positive way. Instead, you get anxious.

“Many people skip the workout at the very time it has the greatest payoff. That prevents you from noticing just how much better you feel when you exercise,” Otto said in an article for the American Psychological Society. “Failing to exercise when you feel bad is like explicitly not taking an aspirin when your head hurts. That’s the time you get the payoff.”

The Unselfish Art of Prioritizing Yourself: Why taking care of ourselves and doing what we love is NOT selfish

from the PsychAlive e-zine

Most of us are taught from an early age that being selfless is a good thing. There are many benefits of altruism to both our mental and physical well-being. However, sometimes the message we receive to be giving of ourselves, to push ourselves to the limit, to be productive, and to forgo our needs can be taken to an extreme in our everyday lives. If we’re not attuned to who we are and what we want, we can start to make sacrifices that don’t just hurt or limit us, but in truth, negatively impacts those we care for. Maintaining a certain regard for ourselves and engaging in self-compassion and self-care are fundamental to creating a good life for ourselves and the people who matter most to us. Here’s why:

1. When we feel depleted, we have nothing to give. When we fill our time with responsibilities and constantly prioritize the needs of others over our own, we often drain ourselves of energy and desire. We’ve all experienced the difference between giving from a feeling of having something to offer, for example happily getting our kids ready, helping a colleague at work, cooking a meal for our partner, doing a favor for a friend, and making ourselves do these same activities because we “should.” We can feel drained, strained, and may be going through the motions but not engaging in a way in which everyone benefits – i.e. our kids feel nurtured, our job feels rewarding, our partner feels seen, and our friend feels cared about. If we are kind to ourselves and considerate of our own needs, we are more likely to show up fully and happily for the people to whom we extend ourselves.

2. Doing what we love recharges us. When we’re lit up and excited, we have more energy and positivity to offer the people around us. The time a parent “takes off” for a date night or an employee uses to rest instead of working until all hours is not self-centered. Just because it feels good to us doesn’t mean it denies others. In fact, by tending to our own needs and practicing good self-care, we alter the very quality of how we relate to others. Our families, friends, and coworkers get to experience us as the best or fullest versions of ourselves – happy and present.

3. We lose our real selves in the “do, do, do” mentality. I know many parents who go above and beyond for their kids on a practical level. They literally pack every minute of their day being chefs, chauffeurs, coaches, and clean-up crews for their kids. I also know people in relationships who focus on doing everything they can think of for their romantic partner. However, when we fall into a cycle of “go, go, go,” we’re often tallying up achievements that we use to prove our worth, but rarely stopping to experience what makes our hard work worth it to us. We may sacrifice our own interests altogether or stop enjoying personal connections that make us feel like ourselves. In doing so, we give up aspects of ourselves, but the people close to us also miss out on really knowing us.

4. We can drain others when we don’t get our own needs met.  One of the best pieces of advice my colleague Pat Love often gives to parents is to get their adults need met by other adults. When parents center their entire lives around their kids in an effort to be selfless, they actually put a lot of pressure on their kids to fulfill their lives and meet their needs.  It’s so much better for kids to witness their parents as full and fulfilled people in and of themselves, thereby experiencing their parents’ example and not just their devotion. This is true in all of our relationships. If we don’t practice self-care and find healthy ways to meet our needs as individuals, we tend to have less energy, complain more, drag our feet, feel more resentment, criticize ourselves and others, all of which can be draining to all the people we are seeking to benefit by setting aside our own wants and needs.

5. We lose ourselves to our “critical inner voice.”  When we are preoccupied by a drive to be “productive” or “helpful,” it’s valuable to look at what’s pushing us. Are we doing what we do because we truly care and want to be of benefit? Or are we driven by something else? Many of us have an inner critic that tells us we have to achieve certain objectives to be acceptable or worthy. This harsh internal coach tends to attack us from all angles and reinforce the idea that anything we do for ourselves is selfish. When we’re listening to this “voice,” it’s easy to lose track of what’s really going on around us. Are we living our lives in a balance way? Are we really doing justice to the people around us by being present and feeling good? The critical inner voice is a huge distraction that affects our mood and behavior, and it can often be at the helm of an unrealistic desire to be “perfect” and always put others first.

6. We fail to practice self-compassion. One of the risks of becoming lost in all the things we should be doing for others is that we stop feeling for ourselves. It’s no surprise, research has shown that being kind to ourselves and practicing self-compassion improves our well-being.  It also benefits the people around us. Researcher Dr. Kristin Neff has also argued that having a kind attitude toward ourselves actually makes us better able to look at our mistakes and make real changes. In addition to self-kindness, she describes two other key elements to self-compassion: mindfulness, which involves learning to accept our thoughts and feelings without over identifying and being overcome by them, and a sense of common humanity, which means not seeing ourselves as isolated or different in our struggles. If we can take time to practice self-compassion, we can feel more comfortable to be ourselves, and we can extend a more compassionate attitude to others.

7. Our stress hurts us and those close to us. Our failure to stop and check in with ourselves and make time for the things that are meaningful to us can increase our stress. Filling our lives with responsibilities can generate a cycle in which being stressed feels like the norm. As a society, we are unapologetic about our stress levels, even wearing them like a badge of honor, proving our value. However, stress takes a serious toll on our mental and physical health. These effects often catch up with us and prevent us from enjoying our lives, not to mention that they affect how we relate to others, often leading to more conflict, tension, and acting out in our relationships.

8. Driving ourselves can impair our performance. Research by The Energy Project recently found that workers who didn’t practice good self-care, like getting enough sleep, often have trouble focusing on one thing and are easily distracted.  Their findings led The Energy Project’s CEO, Tony Schwartz, to conclude, “If you do not put your needs first, then ultimately you will not be able to perform well and show up for others consistently and happily.” Taking care of ourselves not only makes our personal lives better, but it makes us into stronger assets at work.

For many of us, there are good lessons to be learned about being generous and giving of ourselves. However, when we lose touch with our own unique life force, the grand passions and tiny quirks that make us who we are, we diminish the quality of our lives. It’s all too easy to categorize certain pursuits as selfish rather than fighting to maintain the things that make us come alive. However, when we do make time for our wants and needs, we are more alive to the world around us, more available and more giving of our fullest selves. In effect, we are our least selfish, while still honoring our sense of self.

Why Do We Eat Eggs For Breakfast?

By Eileen Reynolds for “Well Done” E-Zine

Poached or scrambled, fried or boiled, tenderly Instagrammed orinhaled via McMuffin, eggs are the undisputed workhorse of the American breakfast. As a kid who wouldn’t touch them—the smell alone made me gag—I spent a lot of time bitterly contemplating this fact while cobbling together strange restaurant meals from the forlorn “sides” section of the menu. Collegiate poverty would eventually cure me of my childish aversion, and I now eat eggs in all forms, but I still wonder sometimes about their automatic association with morning appetites. Why do we eat eggs for breakfast?

The question is best tackled in two parts, and the first is easy. We eat eggs because they are a miracle, one the otherwise sober Oxford Companion to Food gaily describes as the “astonishing and unintentional gift from birds to human beings,” and the acme of food packaging.” People have eaten eggs—whether hen, duck, ostrich, quail, or, in the case of the ancient Egyptians, even pelican—in almost all cultures and eras of human history. Eggs appear in Cro-Magnon cave drawings and on Assyrian cuneiform tablets.

The ancestors of today’s domesticated chickens originated in south and Southeast Asia before 7,500 B.C., and the Chinese had built duck egg incubators by 246 B.C. As the editors of Lucky Peach put it in All About Eggs, “eggs are what humans have in common.”
The same can’t be said for breakfast, which is where answering the second part of the question gets complicated.

Whereas much of the world has long taken a strictly utilitarian approach to breakfast—in many places the go-to remains a warm (often caffeinated) liquid plus a grain—in parts of the West, whether and what to eat upon waking has been known to occasion a moral panic. Is a substantial breakfast good or bad for body, mind, and spirit? The American iteration of that debate came to center around eggs in particular, and has been shaped by two centuries by ever-evolving attitudes toward health, virtue, and class.

Ancient Romans appear to have begun their day with an energy-boosting meal that involved some combination of bread, cheese, olives, salad, dried fruits, eggs, and cold meat leftover from the night before. But by the Middle Ages, Europeans had downsized from the Romans’ three meals to just two per day, nixing the early morning nibble. St. Thomas Aquinas identified “eating too soon” as one of the six subtypes of gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins, and those who indulged in breakfast may have been assumed to nurse other “lusty appetites” as well, Heather Arndt Anderson suggests in “Breakfast: A History”.  
There were some exceptions: children, the elderly, and sick people got a pass, and laborers who needed calories for the workday would’ve eaten bread, cheese, and ale. But the healthy and well-to-do either abstained or lied about their boorish breakfast habits, possibly getting their fix inside bedchambers with only servants as witnesses.

In time, the prohibition softened. By the late 1500s, Queen Elizabeth I was known to eat a breakfast of ale and oat cakes. Coffee and tea—introduced to Europe through trade in the 17th century—became wildly popular, and the Church ultimately loosened breakfast restrictions most people were already ignoring anyway. 

Coincidentally, the 15th and 16th centuries were a boom time for egg recipes, when those who couldn’t afford meat could nonetheless raise hens on very little land, and the Church removed eggs from the list of animal foods not to be eaten during Lent. By 1620, English medical writer Tobias Venner was recommending two poached eggs sprinkled with vinegar as a healthy breakfast—though still with the caveat that this wasn’t strictly necessary for sedentary people, students, or anyone between the ages of 25 and 60.

It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that breakfast really came into its own as a distinct and openly celebrated meal. For factory laborers, sustenance before the grueling workday was more essential than ever, and for the rich—thanks to plentiful household help, easily transported ingredients, new-fangled gadgets, and eventually, electricity—breakfast provided an opportunity to show off newfound wealth. In England and America, the wealthy made omelets and built breakfast parlors—entire elegantly appointed rooms to stage the multi-course meal orchestrated by a bevy of servants. And the brand new middle class imitated those habits with their own attempts at morning excess.

Eggs were useful in that endeavor. In 1875, cookbook author Marion Harland praised them as “elegant and frugal,” advising thrifty housewives to make use of the “nutritious and popular” staple that in the wealthiest homes played second fiddle to costlier meat dishes served to impress. One surprised English visitor to the Midwestern prairie in the 1850s, at the height of this American breakfast golden age, described a particularly extravagant morning feast of “hot and cold bread of different sorts, including corn bread, little seed cakes, pancakes, preserves and blackberry syrup in large soup tureens, hot beef steaks, roast and boiled chickens, and various sorts of cold meat.” This was essentially dinner for breakfast, a spread that would make eggs benedict, invented in New York a few decades later, seem like a light snack by comparison.

 A predictable consequence of all that conspicuous breakfast consumption was chronic indigestion, known at the time as “dyspepsia,” Abigail Carroll writes in Three Squares: The Invention of An American Meal.(Given all the complaints of heartburn, belching, and nausea, one wonders what to make of a warning, in the 1899 Dictionary of Dainty Breakfasts, that scrambled eggs “should never taste of Vaseline.”) While popular wisdom held that the condition was caused by eating underbaked bread, some physicians theorized that it could be cured by replacing meats and eggs with a lighter meal of grains. Hence, breakfast cereal was born, and eggs would have to fight for their place at the table like never before.

Luckily, they had public relations pioneer (and nephew of Sigmund Freud) Edward Bernays in their corner. Hired by the Beech-Nut packing company to help deal with a surplus of bacon in the 1920s, he scored a major victory for team fat by rounding up a group of doctors to say just the opposite of what the cereal evangelists had concluded. A heavy breakfast—specifically bacon and eggs—was good for you. The widely publicized “study” helped permanently cement the pairing as the ideal American breakfast.

Eggs were useful in that endeavor. In 1875, cookbook author Marion Harland praised them as “elegant and frugal,” advising thrifty housewives to make use of the “nutritious and popular” staple that in the wealthiest homes played second fiddle to costlier meat dishes served to impress. One surprised English visitor to the Midwestern prairie in the 1850s, at the height of this American breakfast golden age, described a particularly extravagant morning feast of “hot and cold bread of different sorts, including corn bread, little seed cakes, pancakes, preserves and blackberry syrup in large soup tureens, hot beef steaks, roast and boiled chickens, and various sorts of cold meat.” This was essentially dinner for breakfast, a spread that would make eggs benedict, invented in New York a few decades later, seem like a light snack by comparison.

 A predictable consequence of all that conspicuous breakfast consumption was chronic indigestion, known at the time as “dyspepsia,” Abigail Carroll writes in Three Squares: The Invention of An American Meal. (Given all the complaints of heartburn, belching, and nausea, one wonders what to make of a warning, in the 1899 Dictionary of Dainty Breakfasts, that scrambled eggs “should never taste of Vaseline.”) While popular wisdom held that the condition was caused by eating underbaked bread, some physicians theorized that it could be cured by replacing meats and eggs with a lighter meal of grains. Hence, breakfast cereal was born, and eggs would have to fight for their place at the table like never before.

Luckily, they had public relations pioneer (and nephew of Sigmund Freud) Edward Bernays in their corner. Hired by the Beech-Nut packing company to help deal with a surplus of bacon in the 1920s, he scored a major victory for team fat by rounding up a group of doctors to say just the opposite of what the cereal evangelists had concluded. A heavy breakfast—specifically bacon and eggs—was good for you. The widely publicized “study” helped permanently cement the pairing as the ideal American breakfast.

The Multi-headed Hydra of Prejudice

BY CAROL TAVRIS

A friend of mine, a lifelong Democrat, lives in a retirement home in one of the most liberal cities in California. One day at lunch he decided to sit at a table of residents he didn’t know. He soon realized that they were all Trump voters, enthusiastically expressing their pleasure with the election. “Finally, we won’t have to look at that nigger in the White House any more,” said one woman. My friend was stunned. “Look,” he said, “it’s OK for us to have political disagreements, but I’m deeply uncomfortable with your using that ugly word.” “Too bad,” she said. “We can say whatever we really feel now. To hell with your political correctness.”

I’ve long been annoyed by, and written critically about, the language police on many college campuses, where well-intentioned efforts to ban “offensive” words and deeds frequently lurches into preposterous and sometimes funny extremes. In the prologue to the latest edition of his best-selling sex-information book, The Guide to Getting It On, Paul Joannides writes:

I’ve given up trying to please people who insist that every word of every sentence must not offend a single person on the entire planet. I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say “a woman’s clitoris” because it might offend people who are transgender. So instead of using words like “woman” or “man,” I’m supposed to say “a person with a clitoris and vagina” or “a person with a penis.”¹

So let’s stipulate that none of us likes being told we can’t say what we think, and that we shouldn’t think what we feel. But the kind of political correctness that Joannides laments at least has the benefit of trying to make people aware of the uses and consequences of language, as adding “or she” did to the former norm of using the generic universal male to encompass women. It pales next to what the Trump voter meant by the phrase. For her, and others like her, being “politically correct” means that somehow they have been forced to suppress their racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic feelings. (Suppressed? Have they never been online?) […]

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How Hydration Affects Strength Training

Hydration is known to be a definite determinant of endurance exercise performance. However, little is known about the effects it poses on resistance training performance. Factors ranging from the food you eat to the climate you live in could impact your hydration status making recommendations tough for many experts.
This article will dive into the science behind hydrating and its impact on resistance training, specifically with some useful tips regarding potential avenues to target when trying to optimize your training sessions.

Is Hydration Actually Important? Yes! Hydrating is important for a multitude of reasons—from proper cell function to waste removal and metabolic reactions. With the average human body being composed of anywhere from 50-65% water, the reality is that our bodies require water to function.

Is Hydration Important for General Performance? Yes! As mentioned previously, much of the research has been performed in endurance-based sports, showing that dehydration can result in increased core temperature and heart rate, decreased (heart) stroke volume and increased time to fatigue, all of which could impact performance.

Is Hydrating Important for Resistance Training? That's a million dollar question. Let's look at some research. According to Judelson et al (2007), there was little effect on single, maximal strength and power performance during the dehydrated states.

Individuals who are dehydrated during a resistance training protocol may not experience restricted performance while performing a single set of a given exercise. However, when engaging in multiple sets in a given exercise, there was an impairment in the ability to perform.
This graph displays total work completed after each set in the resistance challenge exercise. Between the three groups adequately hydrated (EU), under-hydrated at 2.5% (HY25) and under-hydrated at 5.0% (HY50) there is an evident drop in total work completed.

As an individual became more dehydrated, changes were evident in: the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), peripheral nervous system (nerves and nerve cells outside the brain), and one's ability to induce and stimulate muscular contraction.

What is Considered an Appropriate Level of Hydration? Dehydration to a 4.8% body mass level has a compelling effect on one's ability to carry out a resistance training protocol. Moderate Dehydration of 2.4% body mass decreased multi-set performance in terms of resistance training protocols.

We know now that dehydration could harm performance in the gym, so what are the recommendations? Much of the research as mentioned occurs during endurance-based events often performed in sweltering heat and humid conditions. The truth is most of the gyms in North America and across the world provide us with air-conditioned facilities where excessive heat and humidity aren't necessarily a concern. There are obviously exceptions. So. to suggest that this recommendation would be the same for athletes on the field or the average exerciser training in a natural air environment is highly debatable.

Fluid Recommendations for Resistance Training in Summary: Due to the overwhelming number of variables that contribute to one's hydration status, a recommendation cannot be made from the research we have gathered. It could be argued that hydrating is potentially over promoted by fitness professionals in a resistance training setting. It's often heard of trainers preaching 1 L of fluid before a training session! That's double the recommendation for athletes doing ironman's in extreme heat!

The optimal fluid intake most likely lies somewhere between the average fluid recommendation for individuals and exercise in heated environments, it's just not clear where the meeting point is. Hydration is a massive topic of discussion with a lot of grey area. Until further research is done in the realm of resistance training, drinking to thirst might be best assuming you are not in an extremely hot environment and already dehydrated.

References:
Coyle, E. (1998). "Cardiovascular Drift During Prolonged Exercise and the Effects of Dehydration." International Journal of Sports Medicine,19(S 2). doi:10.1055/s-2007-971975

Cheung, S. S., Mcgarr, G. W., Mallette, M. M., Wallace, P. J., Watson, C. L., Kim, I. M., & Greenway, M. J. (2015). "Separate and combined effects of dehydration and thirst sensation on exercise performance in the heat." Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 25, 104-111. doi:10.1111/sms.12343

Judelson, D. A., C. M. Maresh, M. J. Farrell, L. M. Yamamoto, L. E. Armstrong, W. J. Kraemer, J. S. Volek, B. A. Spiering, D. J. Casa, and J. M. Anderson. "Effect of Hydration State on Strength, Power, and Resistance Exercise Performance." Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 39, No. 10, pp. 1817–1824, 2007.

Popkin, B. M., Danci, K. E., & Rosenberg, I. H. (2010). "Water, hydration, and health." Nutrition Reviews, 68(8), 439-458. doi:10.1111/j.1753-4887.2010.00304.x

Racinais, S., Alonso, J. M., Coutts, A. J., Flouris, A. D., Girard, O., González-Alonso, J., . . . Périard, J. D. (2015). "Consensus recommendations on training and competing in the heat." Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, 25, 6-19. doi:10.1111/sms.12467

Ultraterrestrials

BY TERENCE HINES

David Clarke has written an insightful, informative and thought-provoking book on UFOs and the UFO culture. This is not a debunking book, although it fulfills that function admirably. Rather, it describes Clarke’s long search for what is really going on with UFO reports. Along the way Clarke goes through various stages of what he calls the “UFO Syndrome”.

Clarke is both British and a reporter. In the latter role, he interviewed many of the major players in the British UFO community. These interviews and his own investigations provide much information that, as far as I know, has never been published before. For readers familiar with the American literature on UFOs, this book provides a very welcome broadening of horizons. I had no idea that there was a British equivalent of Project Blue Book, for example. The honesty with which Clarke describes his own changing beliefs is most refreshing. He is never harsh or demeaning of beliefs he does not hold. He treats those who hold even very bizarre beliefs regarding UFOs with interest and respect.

Like this reviewer, Clarke’s interest in UFOs sprang from reading science fiction stories and seeing science fiction films and TV shows during adolescence. We both read various UFO books and joined a UFO group (NICAP in my case) and came to really believe that UFOs were of extraterrestrial origin, the start of the “UFO Syndrome”. In the introduction Clarke describes in detail his captivation with the syndrome. In the following ten chapters, he writes about his pursuit of the “truth” about UFOs. It is a fascinating journey.

The first two chapters cover topics that will be familiar to the skeptical reader. After describing the Arnold sightings and several 1950’s “flaps” and the huge interest they generated in the United States during the later 1940s into the 1950s, he notes that “the [UFO] syndrome took hold in no less dramatic fashion” (p. 38) in the United Kingdom. It is here that Clarke also describes the important connection between the UFO syndrome and the fantasy and science fiction pulp magazines of the 1930s through the 1950s. This connection has been discussed at length in Andrew May’s excellent Pseudoscience and Science Fiction (Springer, 2017). […]

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4 Popular Diets: The Pros & Cons of Gluten-Free, Paleo, Detox, & Ketogenic Approaches

A high-school reunion, New Year’s Eve, the start of summer. Certain times of the year prompt a renewed commitment to getting your health, fitness and nutrition in order. We may want the nutrition part of the solution to lie in a perfect “new” diet, such as the gluten-free, paleo, detox and ketogenic programs that may be on your radar right now.

You may be asking yourself what these words even mean—and if you should be following one of these diet plans. Below is an overview of some of the pros and cons of each, along with a list of foods you are allowed and not allowed to eat.

One note before you dig in: Remember that nutrition is not one-size-fits-all. I fully believe that there is not one right way for all of us to eat. What works for your best friend or brother may not be the best choice for you. If you choose to start a new nutrition plan, I recommend (in addition to consulting with a registered dietician) you find a strategy that works for your schedule, health (physical and mental), budget, cooking ability and, well, your whole life. Whatever diet plan you choose, you won’t continue with it if it’s not a good fit overall.

Gluten-Free Diet: This diet excludes foods containing the protein gluten, which is found in some plant foods. It is primarily used to treat celiac disease, gluten intolerance and often general irritable bowel syndrome symptoms.
   What foods are included? Foods that do not contain gluten, such as:
Fruits and vegetables, most dairy products, meat, fish and poultry, beans, nuts and seeds (including flaxseed)Grains that don’t contain gluten protein, such as amaranth, cornmeal and rice
   What foods are avoided? Any grain-based product containing gluten protein, including: wheat, barley, rye, triticale & any foods made in a factory with these grains.
   What are the pros?
Relieves symptoms and complications for those with related health conditions affected by these items, & overall, could decrease intake of refined/processed foods.
   What are the cons?
Difficult to follow, restricts people from potentially healthy foods, gluten-free substitutions may be higher in calories, & could increase heart attack risk in people who do not have celiac disease

   Paleo (Caveman) Diet: This diet is based on foods that our ancient ancestors may have consumed, primarily ones that could be hunted or gathered.
   What foods are included?
Meat, chicken, turkey and pork, fish, & eggs, fresh fruit, non-starchy vegetables, nuts and seeds, plant-based oils, such as coconut, grapeseed, olive and walnut.
   What foods are avoided? Grains, including oats, wheat and barley, starchy vegetables (like potatoes), beans and legumes, dairy products, sugar, processed foods, salt
   What are the pros?
Could increase fruit and vegetable intake, could decrease intake of processed, high-sugar and high-sodium foods, could lead to weight loss primarily due to limited food choices
   What are the cons?
Low in carbohydrates, which is dangerous for athletes and negatively impacts performance, may result in nutrient deficiencies, high in fat, which could lead to weight gain

Detox Diet: This diet’s intention is to eliminate toxins from the body. (Note: The body naturally detoxifiesitself via the kidneys, liver and spleen, and it eliminates them through perspiration, urine, & solid waste.)
   What foods are included?
Fruit and vegetable juices and water, some detoxes allow fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables
   What foods are avoided?
Solid foods, & few allow whole grains and flaxseed
   What are the pros?
Could reduce alcohol and caffeine intake, decreased intake of high-fat and highly processed foods, encourages eating more plant-based foods.
   What are the cons?
Weight loss is from fluid loss and loss of muscle mass, weight regain is rapid when diet is discontinued, reduction of metabolic rate, making it more difficult to keep weight off, may result in nutrient deficiencies

   Ketogenic Diet: This diet is a low-carb, high-fat program that uses fat for fuel. It was originally designed to treat epilepsy. It is being looked at as part of a treatment plan for certain cancerous tumors and for blood sugar control and now as a weight-loss method. The ketogenic diet, just as the paleo diet, has been moving through the athlete population, especially with endurance athletes.
   What foods are included?
Meat and fatty fish, eggs, full-fat dairy products, such as butter, cream and cheese, nuts and seeds. oils, avocados, low-carb vegetables, such as leafy greens, asparagus, cucumbers and celery
   What foods are avoided?
Added sugar and foods that contain it, such as ice cream, pudding and sugary drinks, grains, fruit, beans and legumes, alcohol, milk.
   What are the pros?
Lowers blood glucose levels, may decrease inflammation, can promote rapid weight loss
   What are the cons?
May result in nutrient deficiencies
May result in electrolyte abnormalities
May increase risk of heart disease
May cause lack of energy

 Now that you are armed with a bit more information regarding some of the trending fad diets, make an informed decision and know that the greatest success comes from what you can incorporate into your life. If you choose any eating style or exercise program, be sure that you can adjust it for your life and maintain the changes for the long term.

One of the best ways of empowering yourself regarding your health, nutrition or fitness is seeking knowledge. Do your research and be informed. Invest some time researching before investing in the next fad. Please also consult with a physician and a registered dietitian.

References:

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (Academy). 2014. The gluten-free diet: Building the grocery list. Accessed July 22, 2017. http://www.eatright.org/resource/health/diseases-and-conditions/celiac-disease/the-gluten-free-diet-building-the-grocery-list

Academy. 2017. 2014. Grains to avoid if you have celiac disease. Accessed July 22,2017.
http://www.eatright.org/resource/health/diseases-and-conditions/celiac-disease/celiacs-avoid-these-grains

Academy. 2015. Should we eat like our caveman ancestors? Accessed July 22, 2017.
http://www.eatright.org/resource/health/weight-loss/fad-diets/should-we-eat-like-our-caveman-ancestors

Academy. Staying away from fad diets. Accessed July 22, 2017. http://www.eatright.org/resource/health/weight-loss/fad-diets/staying-away-from-fad-diets

Academy. 2017. What’s the deal with detox diets? Accessed July 22, 2017. http://www.eatright.org/resource/health/weight-loss/fad-diets/whats-the-deal-with-detox-diets

Study Reveals Fast, Simple Way to Reduce Bone Loss

from INH Health Watch

A new study finds there’s an incredibly fast way to keep your bones strong and prevent osteoporosis. It takes just one minute a day. Researchers at two universities in England found that short, intense bursts of activity are more beneficial to bones than long hours of mild exercise.

Scientists studied data on more than 2,500 healthy women. About half were premenopausal. The other half had gone through menopause. Using wrist monitors, researchers from the University of Exeter and the University of Leicester tracked the activity level of the women for a full week.

After that, they performed ultrasound scans of the subjects’ heel bones. The heel bone is a good marker of overall bone strength. They found that women who did just one minute of high intensity, weight-bearing exercise each day had 4% better bone health than those who did not. And for the women who did more than two minutes each day, their bone health was 6% better.

While those improvements may not seem dramatic, but scientists say a strength increase of just a few percentage points can prevent a bone fracture in a fall. And the one-minute exercise was not hard. Researchers said the intensity of the “brief burst” activity was equivalent to a medium-paced run.
Dr. Victoria Stiles is a senior lecturer in Sports Biomechanics at the University of Exeter. She was lead author of the study. "There's a clear link between this kind of high-intensity, weight-bearing exercise and better bone health in women,” she said. The research recently was published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Studies show about half of women over 50 will break a bone due to osteoporosis. It will happen to about one in four men. It is a serious national medical problem. Over 54 million Americans suffer from osteoporosis, and more than 2 million seniors are hospitalized each year with fractures due to weakened bones. Falling and breaking bones is a major reason seniors lose their independence and have to move into nursing homes. As such, an investment of one minute a day seems like a very small price. Dr. Stiles said the burst of exercise can be as simple as adding a bit of running to your daily walk.

Other examples of weight-bearing exercise include jumping rope, aerobics, stair climbing, tennis, racquetball, and even fast-paced dancing. Whatever kind of exercise you choose, do it hard for at least a minute a day.

One other thing…make sure you get enough magnesium. A recent study found that adequate levels of the mineral can cut fracture risk nearly in half.

Why You Shouldn’t Work the Same Muscles/Do the Same Exercises Every Day

from The Stack e-zine

There's nothing wrong with being a gym rat. Working out regularly and with intensity is key to getting stronger, faster, and bigger. However, there's a fine line between dedicated and self-destructive—the latter is often called overtraining. Taking breaks and days off is ultimately better for you than working out all day, every day.

That said, the specifics behind overtraining have always been a little hazy. If you've ever done the same exercise or hit the same muscle group on consecutive days, someone's probably told you you're overtraining. But why? If I want to build a bigger, stronger upper body, why shouldn't I bench press every day? Or, if I want to build a stronger and more explosive lower body, why shouldn't I squat every day? What happens in your body when you exercise with this type of behavior?

STACK talked with Dan Hutchinson, exercise physiologist and performance coach for D2K Training, John Mikula, exercise physiologist for the Department of Defense, and Dr. Mike T. Nelson, exercise physiologist and member of the American College of Sports Medicine, to find out what happens when you don't give your body a break.

The Science: There's nothing wrong with wanting to get better. Everyone is told to set goals, so knowing what you want to improve is a good thing. Everyone also knows the only way to achieve his or her goals is to work hard. This is true. But an issue arises when you have a goal in mind—for example, increasing your bench press max and getting a stronger upper body—and decide the best way to achieve it is to perform intense upper-body lifts every day.

When you strength train, you induce tiny tears in the muscle fibers of the muscles you're working. This is normal. After you work out, your body sends "satellite cells" to repair these muscles. The cells use amino acids from protein as their building blocks. If you've got enough high-quality protein in your diet, your body will be able to repair the torn muscle fibers by making them thicker and stronger than before—which is how you gain strength and size.

By constantly assaulting the same muscle groups without rest, however, you destroy those muscle fibers before they have the time to repair. You don't let your body move past the demolition phase and into the building phase. Without rest and recovery, your muscles cannot fully improve and grow.

"We look at the example of bench pressing every day at high intensities, or volumes, as detrimental to the periodization principles of building and recovering," Hutchinson says. "At the cellular level, it comes down to a lack of adequate time to repair the damaged cells."

The implication of what Hutchinson says is that at some point you're wasting time and preventing yourself from making meaningful gains.

Nelson says, "Each time you strength train, you create micro trauma to the muscle tissue itself. The body then works to repair this muscle and build it up so it's just a bit stronger. This process takes time—research states from anywhere as short as 24 hours to as long as 72 hours, depending on intensity. If you're hitting the same muscle group day in and day out, you're causing more damage before the previous damage can be completely repaired. So, you're working really hard and gradually getting less and less results.
"Every time you train, think of it like digging a small hole. Your body then fills the hole back in and adds just a bit more for good measure (which means strength gains). If you're digging at a faster rate than the hole can be filled, you're going backwards instead of forward."

Begging for Injury: Repeating the same exercise or exercises every single day also opens the door to injury. "Repeating exercises such as bench press or power clean every day can be a pathway to the number one cause for fitness injuries, and that is creating 'over-use,'" Mikula says. "The body does not have ample time to recover from the training stimulus or is unable to deal with the amount of localized stress being placed on an isolated part of the body."

Doing 100 reps of Curls every day is a bad idea, not only because your muscle fibers won't recover and get bigger, but also because you leave yourself extremely susceptible to injury. Basically, you're doing something that won't get you stronger while making yourself more injury-prone in the process. Doesn't sound like a good idea, does it?

Working Smart: It's hard to admonish someone for wanting to work hard in the gym. Dedication and intensity are hallmarks of success But you also have to be smart about how you spend your time. If you do the same exercises or hit the same muscle groups in the weight room on a daily basis, you're not getting bigger or stronger—you're inviting injury and wasting time.

"The facts are, if we continually break down the same muscle fibers, or supporting muscle fibers, eventually the individual will plateau, become injured or notice a decline in performance—at least that's what the research and practical experience has shown," Hutchinson says.

You can surely work hard, but you've also got to work smart. By using split days and giving major muscle groups a rest, you'll stay healthier, get stronger, build more muscle and avoid wasting time. "If your goal is to get bigger arms, for example, I would recommend doing some compound and isolation exercises three days a week with at least one day of rest in between," Nelson says.

By the way: in case you’re wondering why you can do the same cardio exercises on consecutive days but not strength training exercises, the answer lies in the muscle fiber types involved: red muscle fiber vs white muscle fiber. Cardio employs red muscle fiber which runs on oxygen and doesn’t involve micro-trauma to the muscle in service of improvement. Red muscle fiber develops more mitochondria to facilitate better oxygen utilization. Strength muscle, or white muscle fiber, is actually disrupted by proper strength training (think: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”). The disruption forces your body to adapt by rebuilding your muscle fibers larger, greater in number, and stronger. This takes more recovery time, not to mention, proper nutrition--in particular, adequate protein.

Are We All Racists? Private Thoughts and Public Acts

Novelists often offer deep insights into the human psyche that take psychologists years to test. In his 1864 Notes from Underground, for example, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky observed: “Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind.”

Intuitively, the observation rings true, but is it true experimentally? Twenty years ago social psychologists Anthony Greenwald, Mahzarin Banaji and Brian Nosek developed an instrument called the Implicit Association Test (IAT) that, they claimed, can read the innermost thoughts that you are afraid to tell even yourself. And those thoughts appear to be dark and prejudiced: we favor white over black, young over old, thin over fat, straight over gay, able over disabled, and more.

I took the test myself, as can you (Google “Project Implicit”). The race task first asks you to separate black and white faces into one of two categories: White people and Black people. Simple. Next you are asked to sort a list of words (joy, terrible, love, agony, peace, horrible, wonderful, nasty, and so on) into either Good or Bad buckets. Easy. Then the words and the black and white faces appear on the screen one at a time for you to sort into either Black people/Good or White people/Bad. The word “joy,” for example, would go into the first category, whereas a white face would go into the second category. This sorting becomes noticeably slower. Finally, you are tasked with sorting the words and faces into the categories White people/Good or Black people/Bad. Distressingly, I was much quicker to associate words like joy, love and pleasure with White people/Good than I was with Black people/Good. […]

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Ask The Macro Manager: Should I Drink Protein Before Or After A Workout?

By Mike Rousell, Ph.D

People think of post-workout protein as the Holy Grail of workout nutrition. What about the pre-workout shake? Learn why you should never skip it! 

You can take in protein or amino acids pre- and post-workout, but if I absolutely had to pick one time, I'd say pre-workout. Sacrilege, you say! If you're more upset than a cat kicked off a ledge, give me time to explain before you claw my face off. Post-workout shakes have long been considered the most important pieces of the workout nutrition puzzle. Recent research suggests, however, that ingesting protein and amino acids prior to training may be even more beneficial. Hang in there, kitty. Here's why:

Fuel Your Muscles: Pre-workout protein, specifically the branched chain amino acids(BCAAs), will help fuel your muscles during training. BCAAs don't need to be processed by your liver; after being absorbed, they head directly to your blood stream to be picked up by your muscles. This is key because exercise causes the breakdown and oxidation of BCAAs. Providing BCAAs to working muscles will prevent the need for your body to catabolize the working muscle itself.

Increase Protein Synthesis: Adding protein prior to your training session primes the pump: It starts protein synthesis during rather than after your training session. Pre-workout protein most likely increases amino acid delivery and uptake by muscles during training. Taken alone or as part of a complete protein, BCAAs inhibit muscle breakdown. So net protein synthesis is elevated even higher!
Burn More Calories: A study published in Medicine and Science in Sports & Exercise found that one scoop of whey protein prior to working out increased calorie burning over the subsequent 24 hours. The exact cause of this increase in calorie burning is unknown, but it may be due to the added metabolic effects of increasing protein and modifying substrates (energy sources) used during exercise. Don't wait for the eggheads: It's okay to reap the benefits of the what (increased calorie burning!) without knowing the why (exact metabolic cause).

Carryover Effect: There is also a carryover effect of nutrients taken in the pre-workout period. After ingesting protein, muscle protein synthesis can stay elevated as long as 3 hours. This means that pre-workout protein allows you to double dip: You reap the benefits of elevated blood amino acids during your training session in addition to a carryover of elevated blood amino acid levels after your workout. This elevation of blood amino acids will also help prevent excessive post-workout muscle breakdown. This occurs partly through the reduction of the muscle-catabolizing hormone cortisol. A 2007 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that starting your workout nutrition with a protein-and-carbohydrate shake 30 minutes prior to exercise led to a significant reduction in cortisol up to one day following the training session.

Fat-Burning Bonus: Taking protein (specifically BCAAs) alone before a workout is extremely beneficial during a low-carb diet. The consumption of pre-workout BCAAs, especially when glycogen levels are low (as they are during a low-carb diet), leads to an increase in fat oxidation (fat burning) during high-intensity exercise like interval training or metabolic resistance training.

The Winner: Pre-Workout Protein: The nutrients you ingest around your workouts are extremely critical to developing and refining your physique. If you skip pre-workout protein, you skip a chance to support intra-workout anabolism (muscle growth AND reduce post-workout catabolism (muscle breakdown). Provided you're getting adequate dietary protein throughout the day, I recommend BCAAs pre-workout. Their free form offers much faster absorption and uptake, which means your blood amino levels will be high when you hit the training floor.

5 Secondary Muscle Groups That Affect Your Core

by Janet Lee, from Women’s Fitness E-Zine

The tightest bellies aren't formed simply by firming the 4 muscles that make up your abs. "Think back to those athletes' bodies at the Olympics," says Dixie Stanforth, Ph.D., a teaching fellow in the department of kinesiology and health education at the University of Texas at Austin. "One of the things that makes them look so good is that they don't train muscles in isolation. They're not doing abs-only moves. They're using many muscles at once, because that's how the body works best."

In other words, thanks to the domino effect, fine-tuning how much other supporting muscles pitch in during certain exercises can help you trim your waist. Meet 5 muscles that affect your core, and find out how to get them to work as ab tighteners. (BTW, mastering these ways to engage your abs during any workout is just as important as pinpointing these 5 muscles.)

Neck Flexors: Have you ever noticed that your chin juts toward the floor when you hold a plank? Or that your head seems to lead when you bang out crunches? "That means your neck muscles, specifically the sternocleidomastoid and scalene—are trying to power your abs," says movement specialist Perry Nickelston, D.C., the author of the upcoming Stop Chasing Pain.

To put the work back on your abs, pull your head in line with your shoulders and tuck your chin. Since the back of your neck is often tense and tight, release tension there before you do any ab work: Lie face up on the floor for a minute or two with two tennis balls placed at the base of your skull on both sides of your spine.

Diaphragm: If you typically don't fill your belly with air every breath— and most of us don't—you're short- changing your ab workout. "Breathing shallowly from your chest means you'll never get optimal strength or power during moves like squats, dead lifts, and plyometrics," Nickelston says.

The diaphragm muscle sits below your lungs and is usually on autopilot (meaning it works without you telling it to, but if you train it to work better, it will). It increases intra-abdominal pressure and thus adds to your core stability— especially when you're moving. A wimpy diaphragm makes it tough for your body to stabilize your spine, which puts you at risk for pain, injury, and poor performance during exercise, sapping abs-sculpting opportunities.

"Think of your abs and back as a cylinder and expand both of them as you breathe to more fully engage the diaphragm," Nickelston says. "It's the most important and effective thing you can do to improve your stability." First, perfect the technique when you're at rest: Lie faceup and press the back of your rib cage into the floor with each breath. Now maintain that sensation during core moves to elicit more ab activation and power but also to engage your abs during any exercise you're doing.
Serratus Anterior: These fingerlike muscles along the sides of your ribs stabilize your shoulder blades, Stanforth says. A sign that they're not firing is if your shoulder blades stick out or "wing" when you're in a plank. Strengthening them will make holding planks and powering through push-ups much easier— and the muscle fibers themselves can make your midsection look super sculpted. To activate your serratus, pull in your front ribs. To toughen them up, hold a plank and press your palms firmly into the floor as you pull your shoulder blades apart. Squeeze them back together; repeat. Do two sets of 12 reps three days a week.

Psoas: This hip-flexor muscle runs from both sides of your lower spine around to your pelvis and is tight (and weak) in most people. A tight psoas can turn off other muscles, including your abs and butt—meaning you're not getting the most out of your workouts. It may also tilt the pelvis forward, making your abs protrude and giving the appearance that you have a belly, Nickelston says.

Stretch and strengthen your psoas with this move: Kneel on the floor on your right knee with left foot flat in front of right knee, hands on hips. Shift hips forward, without tilting them up or overarching your back, so you feel a stretch through the front of your right hip. Hold for 30 seconds, then drive your right knee into the floor as if you're trying to bring it forward (it won't move). Hold for 10 seconds; release. Repeat twice. Switch legs; repeat. (P.S. this is just one of 5 Crucial Stretches Your Body Needs.)

To stop your psoas from taking over during floor ab moves, don't anchor your feet, says Stanforth. "Instead, place the soles of your feet together and let your knees open wide to release the psoas and let your abs do the work."

Adductors: The adductor muscles are your inner thigh muscles. When they work together with your abs (especially the obliques) as they're meant to, they form a powerhouse center that generates force from the middle of your body out. "Usually the adductors are overused because the abs are weak and underworked," Nickelston says.

To teach the adductors and abs to work together, try the Pallof press: Anchor the center of a resistance band around a pole at chest height. Grab ends with each hand; step away until the band is taut. Stand perpendicular to the band with left side facing the pole and legs staggered, left foot in front of right, to start. Hold hands together next to chest for four counts; slowly extend arms forward at chest height for four counts and hold for four. (Resist being pulled to the left.) Return to start. That's one rep. Do five reps. Switch sides; repeat.

Who Are You? Memories, Points of View and the Self

The Discovery is a 2017 Netflix film in which Robert Redford plays a scientist who proves that the afterlife is real. “Once the body dies, some part of our consciousness leaves us and travels to a new plane,” the scientist explains, evidenced by his machine that measures, as another character puts it, “brain wavelengths on a subatomic level leaving the body after death.”

This idea is not too far afield from a real theory called quantum consciousness, proffered by a wide range of people, from physicist Roger Penrose to physician Deepak Chopra. Some versions hold that our mind is not strictly the product of our brain and that consciousness exists separately from material substance, so the death of your physical body is not the end of your conscious existence. Because this is the topic of my next book, Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia (Henry Holt, 2018), the film triggered a number of problems I have identified with all such concepts, both scientific and religious.

First, there is the assumption that our identity is located in our memories, which are presumed to be permanently recorded in the brain: if they could be copied and pasted into a computer or duplicated and implanted into a resurrected body or soul, we would be restored. But that is not how memory works. Memory is not like a DVR that can play back the past on a screen in your mind. Memory is a continually edited and fluid process that utterly depends on the neurons in your brain being functional. It is true that when you go to sleep and wake up the next morning or go under anesthesia for surgery and come back hours later, your memories return, as they do even after socalled profound hypothermia and circulatory arrest. Under this procedure, a patient’s brain is cooled to as low as 50 degrees Fahrenheit, which causes electrical activity in neurons to stop—suggesting that long-term memories are stored statically. But that cannot happen if your brain dies. That is why CPR has to be done so soon after a heart attack or drowning because if the brain is starved of oxygen-rich blood, the neurons die, along with the memories stored therein. […]

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I am Not Living in a Computer Simulation, and Neither Are You

BY PETER KASSAN

The notion that we’re all just computer simulations living in a simulated universe—once the stuff of late-night college dormitory bull sessions—has now resurfaced, having been espoused by (among other eminences) a world-famous astrophysicist and an Internet entrepreneur billionaire.

The notion is the latest manifestation of what was perhaps first contemplated (and then, at least to his own satisfaction, disproved) by Descartes, whose cogito, ergo sum—I think, therefore I am—was the first step in an attempt to figure out what can be reliably known, although he considered not a computer program creating the illusion of his body and his world, but an evil demon. The idea is a close cousin of the philosophers’ thought experiment (or parlor trick) known as “brain-in-a-vat,” which is said to have inspired the Matrix movies. Notice, though, that brain-in-a-vat requires a real brain in a real vat and the Matrix movies had real brains in real people plugged into their simulated world. The proposition that we’re all just computer simulations in a simulated universe eliminates the vat, the brain, the people, and the world. It can also be seen as the nerd’s version of the notion that we’re all simply dreams in the mind of God—perhaps the central creed of a Church of Computer Science.

The computer simulation argument proceeds along these lines:

• The universe contains a vast number of stars.
• Some of these stars have planets.
• Some of these planets must be like Earth.
• Since intelligent life arose and eventually invented computers on Earth, intelligent life must have arisen and invented computers on some of these planets.
• It is (or inevitably will be) possible to simulate intelligent life inhabiting a simulated reality on a computer.
• Since it’s possible, it must have been done.
• There must be a vast number of such simulations on a vast number of computers on a vast number of planets.
• Since there’s only one real universe but there’s a vast number of simulations, the probability that you’re living in a simulation approaches one, while the probability that you’re living in the real universe approaches zero.

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Thinking Positively: Why You Need to Wire Your Brain to Think Positive

 from PsychAlive

Our brains are hardwired to focus on the negative. If our boss tells us five things we are doing wonderfully at work but mentions one area we need to improve upon, or our partner consistently compliments our appearance but one day comments that a certain outfit is not flattering, we zero in on the negative.

Often, one less-than-positive comment can sink our entire mood. This negativity bias evolved in the human brain to help our ancient ancestors focus on threat and increase their chances of survival. However, focusing on the negative can hinder us in the modern world, which is why it is so important for us to train our brains to start thinking positively.

What Does Positive Thinking Entail? Thinking positively simply means taking a more optimistic approach to life. It means choosing to focus on the positive over the negative and remaining hopeful rather than despondent. When life presents challenges, we meet them with a more confident and productive attitude.

Benefits: Studies show that positive thinking is good for both our mental and physical health. According to the Mayo Clinic, the health benefits of positive thinking may include:

Increased life span
Lower rates of depression
Lower levels of distress
Greater resistance to the common cold
Better psychological and physical well-being
Better cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

Thinking positively simply makes us feel better. We have more self-confidence when we focus on things we actually like about ourselves rather than narrowing in on all of our self-criticisms.
Thinking positively helps keep us out of negative thinking patterns, such as rumination that can lead to more self-hatred and depression.

Why It’s So Challenging to Think Positively: Studies show that positive thinking is good for both our mental and physical health. According to the Mayo Clinic, the health benefits of positive thinking may include: increased life span, lower rates of depression, lower levels of distress, greater resistance to the common cold, better psychological and physical well-being,  better cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease, better coping skills during hardships and times of stress.

Thinking positively simply makes us feel better. We have more self-confidence when we focus on things we actually like about ourselves rather than narrowing in on all of our self-criticisms. Thinking positively helps keep us out of negative thinking patterns, such as rumination that can lead to more self-hatred and depression.

Take time to “take in the good”: Spend more time soaking up positive experiences. Remember that your brain doesn’t automatically store positive stimuli in your long-term memory, so you need to give it a boost.

Dr. Hanson suggests that when you have a good experience, no matter how mild it may be, “try to stay with it for 20 or 30 seconds in a row – instead of getting distracted by something else.” This process helps strengthen positive thinking patterns in your brain. The more you practice savoring positive moments and taking in the good, the easier it will become for you to think positively.

So, if there’s a nice moment between you and a loved one, take 10-30 seconds to bask in the glow of the warm feelings. If you notice a particularly beautiful sunset on your walk or drive home, take a few extra moments to drink it in. If you happen upon a blooming garden, literally stop and smell the roses. By taking the time to soak up pleasant experiences, you are rewiring your brain to be more positive.

Practice Gratitude: Gratitude offers us a reliable path to positivity. If you are feeling down or negative in your life, take a few minutes to write down a few things you are grateful for. We often forget about these elements when things get challenging.

Studies have found that gratitude is linked to greater happiness, better health and more optimism and positive emotions. According to Robert Emmons of the Greater Good Science Center, gratitude allows us to celebrate the present, blocks toxic, negative emotions, makes us more resilient, and increases our feelings of self-worth. Gratitude is like a muscle; the more you utilize it, the stronger it gets.

There are many effective gratitude practices. For instance, you can keep a gratitude journal or a gratitude jar, where you write down one to five things you are grateful for each day. Emmons suggests that writing occasionally (once or twice a week) in more depth may be more effective than writing short, daily lists. He also suggests that you “get personal” and focus your gratitude on people rather than things.

Don’t Get Caught Up In Self-Criticism: One of the biggest obstacles to thinking positively is the Critical Inner Voice. We all have an inner critic that loves nothing more than criticizing our every move. This inner critic can lead us into a spiral of shame or self-hatred.

Ruminating on negative thoughts about ourselves, or others, only strengthens the neural pathways for negative thinking. In order to retrain our brains to think positively, we must stand up to our inner critics and not indulge in self-attacks.

If you notice yourself thinking negatively about yourself, interrupt the thought by saying something more positive. For example, if you think something like “I’m so stupid. I definitely failed that job interview.” You could interrupt the thought by saying to yourself, “I’m not stupid. I put myself out there and tried my hardest. Even if I don’t get this job, I’m still okay.”

Practice Self-Compassion: Thinking positively doesn’t mean that you have to love yourself all the time. Rather, you should strive to see yourself compassionately and treat yourself with the same kindness and respect that you would offer to a friend. According to self-compassion researcher, Dr. Kristin Neff, there are three key components for practicing self-compassion:
   1) Acknowledge and notice your suffering.
   2) Be kind and caring in response to suffering.
   3) Remember that imperfection is part of the human experience and something we all share.
Taking a more compassionate attitude to yourself, especially when you are struggling can help you sustain a positive attitude toward yourself. You can find self-compassion exercises on Dr. Kristen Neff’s website.

Avoid Overly Negative/Cynical People: The people we spend our time with can have a big impact on us. When we hang around friends, family, or coworkers who are caught up in a negative mindset, their attitude can rub off on us. When talking with someone who is cynical about the world, complaining about their job, or gossiping about a mutual acquaintance, it is easy to naturally slip into those negative conversational patterns and begin to feel more critical ourselves.

If you notice yourself feeling bad after spending time around certain people, try to limit the amount of time you spend with them. Or try to shift your conversations with them to more positive or neutral topics. (Note: this doesn’t mean not being there for a friend who is going through a hard time. There is a difference between talking openly about something painful or a personal struggle and simply complaining about life and being cynical.)
It is equally important to notice when you feel particularly good after spending time with certain people. Give these positive relationships more importance in your life and seek to cultivate, expand, and spend more time on them.

An Outbreak of Mass Hallucinations and Shoddy Journalism: Why We Need Skepticism More Than Ever

BY ROBERT E. BARTHOLOMEW

When a mysterious epidemic of hallucinations was reported to have broken out in Oregon in October of 2016, media outlets around the world portrayed the story as a baffling medical mystery. There’s only one problem: it never happened. The case of the hallucinating Oregonians serves as a stark reminder of the threat posed by an uncritical media, and the need for skepticism and critical thinking.

During the early morning hours of Wednesday October 12th, 2016, an extraordinary story began unfolding in the community of North Bend, a small picturesque suburb of Coos Bay nestled along the Pacific Ocean in southwest Oregon. At about 3 am, police responded to a 9-1-1 call of vandalism. The complainant was a 57-year-old woman who was a live-in caregiver for an elderly resident. The caller claimed that several people were trying to remove the roof of her car. When police arrived, they could find no evidence of any crime and soon left. Two and a half hours later, the same woman again called to report that the vandals were back and trying to remove her car roof. Once again police rushed to the scene but could find nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, the responding deputies, Doug Miller and David Blalack, could find no evidence that any crime had been committed. Given the unusual nature of her claims, police grew suspicious that the woman may have hallucinated the episodes. She was taken to the nearby Coos Bay Area Hospital where she was examined by medical personnel, “appeared fine, and returned home.”1 […]

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