Living Well While Surviving Cancer
Live Life EVERY DAY!!
Interesting new findings.
Many of us have worked hard to reduce our caloric intake and improve our health. Both short-run and long-run. BUT, how many calories must we cut to see benefits? It depends on our weight at the time that we diet.
As reported by Samiha Khanna-Duke for Futurity.org:
“Adults already at a healthy weight or carrying just a few extra pounds, can benefit from cutting around 300 calories a day, new research shows.”
Click this image to read her article.
Do NOT be complacent.
Understanding our own bodies is essential. In prior posts, we’ve looked at the immune system and knowing yourself. As well as many other health topics. Today, we suggest that you never ignore the following aches and pains.
As Patrick Sullivan writes for Sharecare:
“Pain is your body’s way of telling you something’s wrong. Sometimes you’ll know exactly why you’re hurting. If you went hard at the gym yesterday, it’s no surprise you’re sore today. But other times, pain is symptomatic of a more serious condition. Be aware of these seven aches and pains that may require immediate medical treatment.”
Click the image below to access the full story and a slideshow of the ailments not to ignore.
View a couple of TED Talks videos.
“TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics .”
Through its Web site, New Retirement shows 10 Ted Talks that give advice about retirement:
“You want to have a better retirement. But how do you get there? You could spend hours researching the latest science behind happiness, personal finance and investment theory, and health research. Or you can take a few minutes to watch the best TED Talks related to retirement.”
Here are two examples.
Be inspired. Includes a podcast.
Thrive Global is a popular Web site founded by Arianna Huffington, after establishing the pioneering Huffington Post site (now owned by Verizon).
“After my collapse from sleep deprivation and exhaustion in 2007, I became more and more passionate about the connection between well-being and performance. And as I went around the world speaking about my experience, I saw two things: First, that we’re facing a stress and burnout epidemic. And second, that people deeply want to change the way they work and live… That’s why I launched Thrive Global – to go beyond raising awareness and create something real and tangible that would help individuals, companies, and communities improve their well-being and performance and unlock their greatest potential. At Thrive Global, helping you achieve these goals is our mission and our passion.”
Here’s one example of a recent Thrive Global article. “How to Reap the Mental Benefits of a Vacation Without Actually Going on One.” Click the image to read it.
Recently, Thrive Global became a partner for a new Web site intended to reduce stress:
“Meditative Story is a completely new kind of listening experience that blends intimate first-person stories with mindfulness prompts, enveloped in beautiful music composition. Every week, subscribers will receive a new Meditative Story from a storyteller who will transport listeners to the time and place where everything changed for them — a story that may be deeply relatable to the listener’s own life. As the story unfolds, mindfulness guide Rohan Gunatillake (founder of the popular Buddhify meditation app) offers prompts to calm the mind, and help listeners connect with their own observations.”
“The entire experience is elevated by gorgeous music. Shifting between music and vibration, the exquisite sound design rides above the narrative, bringing each Meditative Story to life and giving subscribers the head space to feel restored and refreshed. Meditative Story is a WaitWhat original series — created by the team who built and led TED’s media organization — in close partnership with Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global. The series is made possible with generous support from Salesforce.”
“A mesmerizing story about the wisdom and delight you can find — even in the midst of tragic loss — by seeing life and death through the eyes of a child. Storyteller Lucy Kalanithi is the widow of Paul Kalanithi, who wrote the best-selling memoir When Breath Becomes Air, published posthumously in 2016. This story is a coda to his memoir.”
Global research from Euromonitor International.
Earlier this year, we reported on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. It was a United States study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
Now, we look at new information on health trends from Euromonitor International.
Click here for the full article.
“Digestive health is one of consumers’ top health concerns. According to Euromonitor International, foods with digestive health as their prime positioning accrued sales of $70.5 billion in 2018 globally, making it the second-largest positioning platform behind general wellbeing.”
“The free-from movement is strongly related to digestive health. As the number of allergies and intolerances to gluten, dairy and lactose rise globally, consumers looking for relief from chronic digestive complaints are fueling the boom in free-from products. There is also a growing perception of gluten, lactose and dairy-free products as healthier, more natural and easier to digest, expanding the consumer base beyond those who are intolerant and allergic to the masses with further growth expected over the coming years.”
Click here for the full article.
“Constantly changing health trends and large amounts of easily available information on health and nutrition is blurring the lines of what types of products consumers are using to maintain their health. For example, consumers who previously relied on traditional beauty products to maintain their appearance are now looking at vitamins and supplements to enhance their appearance as part of their overall well-being.”
“As consumers are shifting focus to a more holistic approach to healthcare, brands and companies need to ensure that they are looking at their products and services with the same view. Therefore, it is important that brands and companies look beyond their immediate competitors and product categories as disruption within health and nutrition industries continues.”
Their accuracy is questioned.
I am one of tens of millions of people who wear fitness trackers. Last year, we wrote about wearables and health care. For me, monitoring the quality of my sleep in a key reason why I wear it. But, in reality, how effective are sleep trackers? Not very, it seems.
Last month, Brian X. Chen wrote an article for the NY Times entitled “The Sad Truth About Sleep-Tracking Devices and Apps.” Here’s what he concluded:
“I wore an Apple Watch, since it is one of the most popular health-tracking devices. I also downloaded a top-rated app called AutoSleep, which uses the Apple Watch’s sensors to follow my movements and determine when I fell asleep and woke up. (The Apple Watch lacks a built-in sleep tracker.) Here’s what AutoSleep gathered on my sleep habits.”
“But the excitement ended there. Ultimately, the technology did not help me sleep more. It didn’t reveal anything that I didn’t already know, which is that I average about five and a half hours of slumber a night. And the data did not help me answer what I should do about my particular sleep problems. In fact, I’ve felt grumpier since I started these tests.”
“That mirrored conclusions of a recent study from Rush University Medical College and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Researchers noticed patients complaining about sleep data collected by apps and devices from Nike, Apple, Fitbit and others. In their study, they warned that sleep-tracking tech could provide inaccurate data and worsen insomnia by making people obsessed with achieving perfect slumber, a condition they called orthosomnia. It was one of the latest pieces of research supporting the idea that health apps don’t necessarily make people healthier.”
Click the image below to read more from Chen. Happy sleeping. 🙂
What really makes us happy?
As we have noted before, happiness is a key goal for all of us. Regardless of our stage in life or physical condition. In fact, happiness can affect our physical feelings by reducing our angst (anxiety). For example, see Living Better and Being Happier and Life Is Too Short to Hold Grudges. Today, we consider influences on happiness.
Thomas Oppong, founder of AllTopStartups,expresses some interesting insights on this topic for Medium:
“Humans spend billions of dollars every year looking for happiness. Many of us seek happiness in all sorts of places, hoping it might be bought or found. Others expect people close to them to make them happy.”
“Yet, there is lots of research that proves this is a waste of time (not to mention money). True contentment is closer than you think. We often think it’s our life circumstances — problems, issues, setbacks, tragedies, and misfortunes that make us unhappy. And that if we could change those obstacles, our circumstances would be different, and we will finally be happy. We easily assign the cause of our unhappiness to these external factors.”
“It turns out, it’s not our circumstances that make us happy or unhappy. According to research, we’re happiest when thought and action are aligned, even if they’re only aligned to do the simplest of tasks.”
“Your happiness is not dependent on where you live, what you can afford, a better career or relationship but from your cultivating a healthy and balanced state of mind.”
Click the image to read more.
