Healthy B.P.M.

If an employee is obese, s/he might cost the company more money.An obese employee has more reasons to take sick leave and suffers from more work-related injuries. So the compensation that comapnies invest in their employees just shoots up!

Check this out:Study: Fat workers cost employers more

This calls for a change in the way employers treat their employees. While depriving employees of their health, they create more expenditure and liability. Obesity is one area. But what about the work culture in general?People work day in and day out, without time for their families, without time to read their favorite books or even to have a simple stroll in the park. Life has lost its quality. The excuse:MONEY.

But if companies are losing money with sick employees, they would have it good to enrol their employees in gyms and create an easier work culture and friendlier environment. Benefits all.

fat, obese, lifestyle

Turns out my addiction to chocolate is a good thing. I keep trying to find reasons to justify my cravings:)

Dark chocolate seems to have the effect of blood-pressure lowering drugs. They contain polyphenols, similar chemicals you find in fruits and vegetables, and these help in lowering your blood pressure. The milk protein that you find in milk chocolate actually blocks the absorption of polyphenols….so your milky bar won’t help in that area.

Read Remedies: Dark Chocolate Similar to Blood Pressure Drugs

dark chocolate, polyphenols, blood pressure

Do you want to live to be a hundred?

I’m not sure about that one.Think about a life without your parents and with your kids all grown old and your spouse probably history. And all those aches and pains. And all that loneliness.

Research has it that people who do reach that age and are still reasonably healthy have a better outlook toward life. They seem to be more positive and are hard working. A life devoid of smoking and drinking helps but only to a point. Destiny and genetics intertwine. You can’t plan how old you’ll grow but you can try to lead a healthier life. Controlling the way stress affects you is an important factor in aging gracefully.

Read this story:What are my chances of living to 100?

old age, death, health, lifestyle

Do you need a life coach?

I was reading a book by a famous life coach and thinking I wish I had met her when I was eighteen. I was clueless about life when I was eighteen. I had no pressure on me to achieve anything. It was all going good. The grades were good. I read and wrote poetry. Life was simple.

On the other hand, kids my age who were going crazy that they had come of age and needed to make it big are making waves in their careers now. I am still experimenting.

How do you know if you need a life coach?

-Well, you’ll pretty much be going either everywhere, as in you would want to do everything, or you would be going no where. Dead end. Zilch.

-You wake up in the morning unhappy. You hate doing what you are doing day in and day out.

-You look at yourself in the mirror or get a photograph of yourself and feel This is not me. I’m not happy.

-Your parents and loved ones notice changes in you-negative ones.

You could pay for your life coach or take help from your friends and family. It isn’t always easy doing things alone. Sometimes some advice, if taken constructively, can make your life easier, help you make better choices and make you feel happy at the end of the day.

life coach, lifestyle

A lot of us suffer from backaches. Reasons vary from sedentary lifestyle, work pressure, computer-based work, limited exercise and incorrect posture. Even if you walk, if you walk with the wrong alignment, then your chances of having back pain go up. If you are loaded with toddlers, then you can feel the spine causing havoc. Simple things like climbing the stairs and getting up from bed become painful experiences.

I recommend anyone with backache to read this article:
5 fixes to help you stand up to back pain

You get a lot of tips on how to sit comfortably and walk with ease. Standing straight is supposed to make you feel better, not be some kind of strenuous action. There are options you can use when wearing those heels. And when you sit at work, make sure you take breaks as much as possible. Don’t ever start exercising without warming up. That can trigger off severe pain sometimes.

back pain, health, lifestyle

Empathy is an interesting word and requires serious imagination. It’s being able to see the other person’s point of view, feel his or her pain and ironically it could be used to positive or negative effect.

This article Understanding Empathy: Can You Feel My Pain? really got me thinking. Patients are looking for doctors who empathize with them. So would a depressed patient feel better off if his doctor had been through depression himself? Sometimes that would help.

There are racial issues too. Sometimes you would prefer to have a doctor who is from your own country or who shares the same religion. That is something that doctors have to deal with on a daily basis.

Would you be more comfortable if your child was taught by someone from your own country, racial origin or religious affinity? It is a difficult question to answer but if you think about it honestly, maybe you will surprise yourself.

If you are a woman, do you prefer female doctors? And vice versa?

It’s kind of complicated but maybe we believe that someone who shares something of our culture can empathize with us better and serve our purpose. Something I found very interesting since we live in a global potpourri and we can no longer choose what kind of doctor,teacher or grocer we would like to meet.

lifestyle, empathy, globalization

With a new drug on the anvil, one that will put an end to the monthly period Period, a new debate has sprung up about whether ending menses is a good idea.

Says Samantha(name changed on request):I’d do anything to put an end to this monthly torture.

She has all the reasons to complain- unbearable cramps, Irritable Bowel Syndrome,mood swings…every month she’s on medication for the biting pain. But when I asked her if she wanted to stop her period permanently she wasn’t so sure.

Women have been going through this ordeal for a long time. Some have no problem whatsoever;others suffer unbelievable pain. Nowadays in the work-oriented world, natural biological realities are becoming obstacles. I think the period will be a thing of the past.Look at contraceptives; they have changed the way women live and are unavoidable tools used to program life to be the way we want it to be.

However, there are a lot of health concerns. No one really knows the long term effects of doing away with the period. Read Pill That Eliminates the Period Gets Mixed Reviews for more.

Also check out the trailer of the movie: Period:The End of Menstruation?

period, menstruation, Period: The End of Menstruation?, health, lifestyle, women

Afer red wine, research has it that your fruity coktails have health benefits.Treating berries with alcohol increases antioxidant capacity and has a preservative action too. Colored fruits and vegetables are rich in antioxidants, which have anti-cancer properties, and alcohol makes all those fruits healthier.

Now this doesn’t mean Get Drunk people! It just goes to show that there are benefits in most fruiity concoctions and funnily enough the ethanol dose perks up the health factor!

Read Alcohol may make fruit more fruitful

alcohol, fruit cocktail, vodka, rum, antioxidants

I’m wondering about that one.

This generation is stressed out. Work pressure, working -at -home pressure, commute pressure, investment pressure….our parents were way happier. I remember the kind of time we had when we were younger. It was quality time and we used to discuss more things as a family. Maybe we have far too many television channels now and our life has become so comfortable that we can’t really handle stress.

Even conversations have thinned down. It’s all about a day’s work done. We’re all in pursuit of happiness but running long and hard. so much that the aches and pains have gone up(in spite of the fitness frenzy that has caught on).Research suggests that there is a problem but it’s not something to worry about just yet. Awareness can change the way we live.

I think we should devote more TIME to ourselves, our families and the things we love. That must be the reason why our moms and dads were a more robust lot. They loved to give and hardly thought about themselves. I do think a lot about myself, my career growth and my life. The ‘I-Syndrome’ can really stress you out.

Read Baby boomers may be less healthy than parents.

baby boomers, health

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund

April 16, 2007, will be remembered as one of the darkest days in the history of the Virginia Tech community and the world beyond.

To remember and honor the victims of those tragic events, the university has established the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to aid in the healing process and generate financial support.

The fund will be used to cover expenses including but not limited to:

• Grief counseling
• Memorials
• Communication expenses
• Comfort expenses
• Incidental needs

If you plan to give, please click the link below:

I’m short sighted and know what it’s like to wake up in the morning and fumble for my glasses. Yeah they called me four-eyes in school but I loved my glasses as it was my window to the world. Now we have glasses, lenses, surgeries…eye defects are getting cured. But long ago people dealt with their eye defects and as their vision shrunk they continued to do the things they did. Now research is linking poor vision with Impressionist painting.

The Impressionists give us a blurred picture of the world. There is a beautiful blurriness, an absence of defintion that makes the viewer get an ‘impression’ of the moment. Something like a poem. Read A New Look at Impressionists’ Failing Vision. Claude Monet had cataracts and Degas suffered from macular degeneration. That explains the vagueness of their painting. They painted what they SAW.

Interesting take on art.

Impressionism, Monet, Degas, cataract, macular degeneration, art

Now that the trans fat debate has lost its steam, another one coming up is: We all know that trans fat is deadly in large quantities; so what Next? What replaces trans fat? The answer is that there is no healthy replacement yet. What is being used is saturated fat and that is almost as bad.

Since the average American has five times as much saturated fat as trans fat, s/he’s still in the obesity danger zone. and runs the risk of a variety of disaeses like stroke,diabetes and heart disease. The key is Eat Healthy and that means cut down on Saturated fats too.

This is where reading your food labels (even after you figure out that the item is trans fat-free) helps.

I loved this article: Are trans fat substitutes really healthier?

health, obesity, trans fat, saturated fat, cholestorol, diet, fat

What makes people go on mass shooting sprees? Something in their genes?

Steinbeck tried to analyse the psyched out mind in East of Eden. I don’t think an explanation of being depressed, angry or hateful is going to change anything about the lives that were lost in Virginia. But it helps us as parents and individuals to know the reality of dangerous thoughts and the importance of instiling good thoughts in our kids. Identifying early signs of anti-social behavior should also put parents on alert.

I read this very disturbing piece on psycopathic behavior in kids. Anti-social behavior is a painful reality.All we can do is pray we don’t ever have to see it.

Virginia shooting spree, anti-social behavior, juvenile criime

How did Butler end up looking like King Leonidas of the 300 hall of fame?

He worked out crazy for four months. He had help from a world class mountaineer and a Venezuelan body builder. The 300 Spartan workout which is hitting headlines in a big way isn’t that easy. Imagine doing “25 pullups, 50 deadlifts with 135 pounds, 50 pushups, 50 jumps on a 24-inch box, 50 floor wipers 50 single-arm clean-and-presses using a 36-pound kettle bell, and 25 more pullups. All this, in addition to utilizing other unconventional yet equally taxing training methods, such as tire flipping and gymnastics-style ring training”(Excerpt from this fantastic article by Jeff O’Connell:Spartan Workout Secrets from the Star of 300). At the end of the sweat-till -you -are -dead routine, you end up looking like a comic book super hero with fantastic chiselled abs and superhuman physique.

The Spartans were a clannish lot who had the highest standards of perfection of the body. Legend has it that weak Spartan babies were often abandoned as it was a sure sign that they were unfit for their future life as warriors. I guess the twenty first century is a better place to be in. We debate and discuss body image problems. We create dialogues and market products. We never give up on imperfection. We profit from it:)

Some misconceptions about the 300 workout that Mark Twight(one of the fitness trainers at 300) has clarified here.

Spartan 300 workouts, Gerard Butler

Protecting the young or the lack of protection of the young seems to be making headlines everywhere. Children seem to be the underprivelaged lot. They are little people whose views are often sidelined and they are being abused in the millions. I was kind of shocked to read in the newspapers that a large percentage of children are victims of abuse at HOME.

I can’t really believe that. But it’s true. Parents take out their frustration on children at home. But sexual abuse? If you register at this website you could get information on how to help prevent this terrible truth.

The most important thing we can do is try to nurture a healthy atmosphere in the home. Try at all times to maintain calm and NEVER take out your frustration on the kids because that really amounts to hurting your kids. There is this debate about whether spanking kids can be classified as abuse. Disciplining is one thing but have you noticed when the spanking turns into angry hitting? When you have had a bad day. When you are calm and relaxed, you will not REACT to your children in the same way.

What do you think?

child abuse, healthy lifestyle