April 3rd, 2010 by DrCharles in Better Health Network, Humor, True Stories
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“Will you grab that spider web?” my grandmother said abruptly. We were sitting on an old bench overlooking the river. It was September. I had sprung her from the assisted living home earlier that day.
“Which spider web are you talking about, Gram?” I asked her. My eyes were sleepily watching the timeless flow of the big river, the eddies and swirls along the banks, and the gracefully bending boughs of the old oak trees as they waltzed with the wind.
“There to the left!” she said with certainty, reaching her bony hand into the sky and grasping at thin air. “Get it, will you?”
I looked again but there was nothing. I knew that my grandmother’s mind had developed a little static among the signals, a few crackling wires in the electric grid of her brain, and I figured that her eyes were playing tricks on her.
“I don’t see it, Gram. What does it look like?”
She seemed a little disappointed that I did not share her perception. “It’s feathery, and it’s drifting just over the river. It’s actually quite pretty.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Examining Room of Dr. Charles*
April 3rd, 2010 by David Kroll, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Book Reviews, Health Tips, Opinion, True Stories
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From the “unsubstantiated evidence” files, I wanted to share with you a quick light that popped on in my head while reading a much-discussed article from last weekend’s New York Times Magazine.
In it, former House & Garden magazine editor Dominique Browning vividly shares her experiences following the folding of the magazine in 2007. This long-form essay is adapted from her upcoming book, Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put On My Pajamas, and Found Happiness.
Much can be discussed about her experiences, but I was particularly struck by the account of her response to her newfound freedom:
“In this way, being unemployed is a lot like being depressed. You know how there are millions (O.K., a handful) of things you swear you would do if you only had the time? Now that I had all the time in the world — except for the hours during which I was looking for work — to read, write, watch birds, travel, play minor-key nocturnes, have lunch with friends, train a dog, get a dog, learn to cook, knit a sweater, iron the napkins and even the sheets, I had absolutely no energy for any of it. It made no difference that music and books and nature had long been the mainstays of my spirit. Just thinking about them exhausted me. I had absolutely zero experience in filling weeks — what if it became years? — with activity of my own choosing. Being unemployed meant being unoccupied, literally. I felt hollow.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Terra Sigillata*
April 3rd, 2010 by BarbaraFicarraRN in Better Health Network, Health Tips
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By Barbara Ficarra, RN, BSN, MPA
Good news: You can get fit and toned anywhere with simple exercises.
My good friend works at a major company in NYC and she’s fortunate since she’s able to hit the gym on her lunch hour. If you have a job that allows you the time to go to the gym, that’s great. Not everyone is that fortunate.
As women we have so many responsibilities and we’re so busy. Trying to juggle work, family and friends can be a struggle and it’s not always easy to find time to exercise.
Truthfully, you don’t need to belong to a gym to exercise. Just keep moving. Whether you’re a stay-at-home mom or if you sit behind a cubicle, it doesn’t matter who you are. There are simple exercises that you can do anywhere.
I asked fitness expert Karen Ficarelli to share some simple tips to help keep you toned, whether you’re at home working or at the office. Karen suggests these easy moves to help tone your butt, thighs, calves, abs, waist, back, arms, shoulders and thighs. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*
April 2nd, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
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Research scientists at MIT have been studying the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) region of the brain that seems to be involved in judging the behavior of other people. With the help of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) applied to the region, they were able to affect the moral conclusions that people reached when analyzing the actions of others.
From MIT news office:
The researchers used a noninvasive technique known as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to selectively interfere with brain activity in the right TPJ. A magnetic field applied to a small area of the skull creates weak electric currents that impede nearby brain cells’ ability to fire normally, but the effect is only temporary.
In one experiment, volunteers were exposed to TMS for 25 minutes before taking a test in which they read a series of scenarios and made moral judgments of characters’ actions on a scale of one (absolutely forbidden) to seven (absolutely permissible). Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
April 2nd, 2010 by Nancy Brown, Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Humor
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People, people, people: If you don’t understand how birth control works, you shouldn’t be having sex. What happened to the old days when the boyfriend was expected to sit through the video and conversation about all the types of birth control during the appointment at Planned Parenthood?
A friend sent me a link to the funniest video of men (trying to) explain how birth control works — it’s worth viewing for the laughs. These are all adult men who have some serious misconceptions about how birth control works, but “lady business” as a euphemism for vagina may become part of my vocabulary!
It’s no wonder that the United States has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections — our youth are ignorant about how to prevent them. Please talk to your teens about birth control.
Remember that the teens who know the most about sexuality tend to be the ones who don’t have sex. How’s that for motivation to talk to your teens?
Photo credit: nateOne
This post, Birth Control: How Men Think It Works, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..
“Will you grab that spider web?” my grandmother said abruptly. We were sitting on an old bench overlooking the river. It was September. I had sprung her from the assisted living home earlier that day.
