Category Archives: Health

Twitter: Who I’m Following, Part 6

It’s been just about two months since I last updated the list of people I’m following on Twitter. I thought today might be a good day to give a brief update. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll try to catch “all the way” up to who I’m following. In case you missed the earlier posts:





So, without further adieu, here are the people I have followed since my last post.

: Louise Hay is the author of one of the most the most famous self-help books of all time – . It lends credence to the idea that your thoughts can affect your biology.

: “A collection of quotes that will challenge, motivate and inspire you to be the best you can be.” Curated by , Personal Development Trainer & Coach.

: He is a former Governor & Congressman and is currently . He has bee notoriously held out of , but has some intriguing ideas.

: CNBC is a cable television business news channel. They are dedicated to covering business headlines and financial markets.

: LeVar Burton played the lovable character from . He’s also a big proponent of literacy.

: Justin Trudeau is the son of the famous . Justin has gone on to become a politician in his own right.

: Since the passing of Jack Layton, Turmel has filled in as the interim leader of the NDP. Shortly, the NDP will pick their leader.

: Dahlia is a Canadian (eh?) and mostly tweets about issues regarding law and the court system.

: This is the account of the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron. I’m not sure, but I think the account will stay with the Prime Minister’s office, regardless of party.

: Melinda Gates is the co-founder and co-chair of the , which is the largest .

: Jim Carrey was born in (I lived there when I was younger!) and is one of the funnier comedians of today.

: Lewis Black is a stand-up comedian and is a regular on . His tweets are often funny.

: “Word Spy is devoted to ‘lexpionage,’ the sleuthing of new words and phrases.”

: Michael Steele is a former RNC Chairman. He is a contributor to MSNBC (often representing the conservative viewpoint).

: She is currently a Washington correspondent for GQ and often has interesting commentary on the political debates.

: Julie is one of my friends from SVSU. She currently works for the American Red Cross.

: The Dalai Lama is the most influential figure in Tibetan Buddhism. His “reign” has lasted over 60 years!

: This twitter account is aimed at iPad users, but during “The Rachel Maddow Show,” it often tweets links to articles of which Maddow is referring.

: Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 and is a very well respected academic.

: I used to watch Ali back when he was on . I always found him to be very intelligent.

: From the Twitter account: “We work to help all people lead healthy, productive lives, focused on health, poverty, and opportunity.”

: I listened to a lecture of Prof. Aaker (look for it in my upcoming post in the series “, Part 6.”)

: The : Informing and inspiring leaders of social change.

: Bill Gates doesn’t tweet very often, but when he does, he often, “shares cool things he’s learning.”

: Jack Welch is one of the preeminent businessmen of our time. It’s great to be able to follow his commentary via Twitter.

: Tweets to articles in that have to do with news or insights for business education.

: I like to view information by way of charts, so it’s great that has an account dedicated solely to charts.

: Tweets from this account are from and have to do with business, finance, or economics.

: This is the Twitter account for a blog and there are often tweets about the economy, business, and finance.

: This account retweets Humblebrags. As is made clear on their about statement, “Humblebrags are different from brags.”

: Paul La Monica tweets — often — about stocks (what’s up, what’s down) and the economy. He’s quite a barometer for the market.

: Richard writes about social and economic theory. He’s current a at the University of Toronto.

: Roubini is a rather famous economist. In fact, he predicted the collapse of the US housing market and the worldwide recession.

: Felix Salmon is a noted finance blogger for Reuters. He’s won for his scientific reporting.

: “GOOD is the global association of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits powering what works.”

~

As I said earlier in this post, I’ll do my best to catch up to the updated list of who I’m following in the next couple of weeks. As always, if there’s someone you think I might like to follow, leave me a comment, send me an email, or me.

Finding a Moment for Stillness, Peace, Quiet, Calm, or Silence

How often do you find yourself (or maybe your colleague) moving quickly from obligation to obligation without regard for a second to sit still? In our fast-paced lives, rarely do you see someone take the time for themselves. That is, rarely do people take time out of their lives for themselves.

While I think this is important to recognize, I also realize that the way that life is structured, it’s not easy to take time for yourself. There are always those 4 or 5 things at the bottom of the to-do list. Usually, things you’d like to do, like: play my guitar; hit the links; start writing my book; etc. I realize that it’s not easy. There’s so much going on in our lives that we often go from task to task, just trying to get it all done. I’ve already written about the importance of , but I think it’s equally important to take time between tasks.

What do I mean by that?

Take, for example, the person who just gets out of an important meeting at work and realizes that they are a few minutes late to pick-up their kid from daycare. They race from the elevator to their car and fly out of the parking garage, anxiously looking at the clock. They get to the daycare center and end up being a few minutes late (as predicted). However, this lateness isn’t an issue as there are other children who are awaiting rides. More importantly, our main character’s child, the one who needed to be picked up at “just the right time,” is busy engaged with one of their schoolmates.

There are a few things we could glean from this example, but I’m aiming for one: think about the time that our main character was “rushing” and thinking about “being late” to pick up their child. During this time, our main character’s physiology was reacting. The adrenal glands were pumping adrenaline into the veins (as the body does when it encounters stress). This increased stressful state, however, was completely unnecessary. There was no imminent danger on the way from work to the daycare center for our main character. Our main character would have arrived (at the same time) and without the added adrenaline coursing through their veins. Most notably, our main character would have arrived much more relaxed had they taken even a few seconds to sit still.

There are millions of examples of this happening everyday around the world. I would hazard a guess that they are on the decline. With the growing prevalence of meditation in the western world (), people are learning how to be relaxed. They are learning to take things a little slower and set aside some time in the day for themselves. I think this bodes well for those people who do so, but also for the rest of the people in the world. As we lower our , we are better equipped to deal with the stressors of our daily lives (without overreaction).

So, do yourself a favor and before you engage in your next activity/task, take a minute (or a few seconds) to clear your thoughts and clear your head. You’ll be surprised how useful you may find this.

Remembering What’s Important to You: Lessons from Hurricane Irene

With much of the for the potential effects of , I can’t help but think of what an opportunity this could be for many people. I keep hearing the figure being quoted as how many that are potentially affected by this storm. That’s just about 20% of the population of the US (think: 1 in 5 Americans). That’s a lot of people. I would call this an opportunity for some because of the chance these people will be given to reflect on what’s important to them. Let me explain.

Many people go about their daily schedule without much thought for what happens outside of this schedule. This is not to say that there’s anything wrong with this, but just to say that this is common for most people. They get up in the morning, go to work, come home, , go to bed, and repeat. Unless there is something that shakes up this routine, many people will continue on in this way for a long time. Layman’s terms of says that an object in motion tends to remain in motion. In this instance, the object is the person fulfilling the routine. Unless something interferes with this “motion,” the motion will continue.

The prevailing opinions about events like these tend to revolve around words like . While this viewpoint is understandable, I would hasten and suggest reading the wise words of “” My point in raising the idea that an event like Hurricane Irene can be seen as an opportunity for some is that this shake-up, this wrench in their otherwise “object in motion,” could allow someone to see that they aren’t necessarily doing what it is that they want to be doing. Maybe they’re working at a job that they aren’t passionate about. Maybe they don’t know what their passion is. Maybe they aren’t spending enough time with their spouse and kids. Maybe they don’t have a spouse and want one. Maybe they wish they could have travelled to Europe, Asia, South America, or Africa. Maybe they wish they could have travelled to (or within) North America.

There are any number of things that could be realized as a result of an act of nature such as this one. Not everyone has the willpower to take a break (or ) from their routine to see the things that they wish they were including in their lives. Maybe it’s the of an event like Irene that some people need to be able to see the things that they’re missing out on in their life. While it may not seem like it at first, this is wonderful! Remember that there are those of us who, even when the wrench obstructs our object in motion, will condemn the wrench for wrecking our routine rather than take a step back to examine what the wrench’s purpose might be.

The Unending Wisdom of TEDTalks

For quite some time now, I’ve been accumulating a list of TEDTalks that I wanted to do posts about. Unfortunately, I think the list is growing “out of control.” As such, I thought I would just do a catch-all post to cover some of the more under-discussed TEDTalks. If you’re unfamiliar with TEDTalks, I highly recommend checking out the list of the . There are some really good topics there. In previous , I have discussed other TEDTalks (), and I’m likely to talk about them again in the future. Without further adieu, here are some of the TEDTalks that I think are worth a gander:

– This one was recommended to me by a good friend of mine, likely because of my inclination for a positive disposition about life. There were some interesting statistics about smiling (and health). I highly recommend this to anyone, but especially to those who would rather be gloomy.

– This is a talk I learned of by following the . It was given by one of the passengers on-board the infamous  (the one that landed in the Hudson). Not only was this passenger on-board, he had a front row seat to what was going on as he was in seat 1A. I very much enjoyed his talk. I think my favorite line from his talk: “I’m a collector of bad wines.” If you don’t quite get what he means by this, I’d watch the video.

– As the top comment on the video laments: “Why doesn’t this have more views than Lady Gaga?” Given that there are many ways of learning, I think it’s important that data be represented in many fashions. Rolling has, really, made data interesting (to those who would have otherwise not thought so) and even for those who think that numbers are interesting all by themselves. In an updating post about who I’m following on Twitter, you’ll notice a number of additions of people who are focused on transforming data in chart/graph/etc. form.

– I think I was watching  one night and one of his guests was Salman Khan. I was amazed by what this one guy had put together from simply starting with the intention to help his cousins with mathematics. There are now thousands and thousands of videos teaching students around the world about a range of subjects from the French Revolution to calculus.

– I just had to include this follow-up to one of the . I must say, I am surprised that this video has only garnered about a quarter million views in a year’s time, while his first TEDTalk has more than 2.5 million views.

– Somewhere along the way, I developed an affinity for the brain and brain science (or neuroscience). Things that have to do with the brain fascinate me. Maybe it’s the trillions of intricacies to the brain (I’m a , remember?) In this video, Limb shows the neuroscience behind creativity.

– I’m not necessarily endorsing WikiLeaks (one way or the other), but I believe it can be useful to seek to understand the viewpoint or reasons why someone does something.

– With a title like this, how could I not include this in a list of TEDTalks to watch? I’m in favor of most things that seek to unify the world in peace. In this video, Hunter explains how he attempts to get his 4th-graders to solve the problems of the world. I think this is superbly brilliant! Most of the time, children haven’t been socialized into ways of thinking that can become rigid. It’s useful to allow them to use their unencumbered imagination to work through some of these complicated issues.

There are many more TEDTalks that are worth talking about (both under-viewed and adequately viewed). I invite you to share with us some of your favorite TEDTalks in the comments section.

The Best Piece of Advice: We’ll See…

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever come across is one with regard to . I’ve written about perspective and having a in posts before, but I think that this particular post, or more accurately, the content of this post, is the best summary of my “perspective” when it comes to perspective.

The I’m quoting this from says the story is Taoist, but I’ve heard other people say it’s from different traditions:

[There was] an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.

“Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“We’ll see,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.

“How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“We’ll see,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“We’ll see,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“We’ll see” said the farmer.

This kind of story could keep going on and on and on — and it has relevance to every subject (you’ll notice that I’ve placed it in every category that I currently have for the posts I write). While there are some things that I categorically disagree with (the death penalty being one), I could see this story or as the answer to many hardships in people’s lives. Having lived through *some* hardships so far, I can understand how hearing these words are not necessarily comforting with regard to certain instances, but well after the fact (in my experience), the perspective created by these words can illuminate some unexpected insights.

~

I thought I’d present some examples from the news where we could apply this wisdom:

– Many Toronto Blue Jays’ fans are pleased (myself included) that they acquired Colby Rasmus (via trade). He may turn out to be a great player for the Jays, or he may not. We’ll see.

– Most economists (and people) following the “” will tell you that the US needs to raise its debt ceiling or there will be ramifications of epic proportions. Most of what I’ve heard/read on the issue seems to be a whole lot of politicking. If the US defaults on its loans will that be the worst thing in the world? If the US averts this “disaster,” will that be a good thing? We’ll see. (This particular We’ll See might not have a concrete answer for another 30 years).

– As Borders’ stores continue to close their doors for the final time, many speculate on what this may mean for other businesses similar to Borders. The outlook isn’t usually positive, but maybe this will free up time for other endeavors. We’ll see.

– (An odd bit of news, to say the least). This particular example is quite similar to the farmer’s son falling off the horse and breaking his leg. While I don’t expect Alex Trebek to be drafted to the military, who knows what this injury will do for his “perspective” on life. And the answer is: We’ll see.

As you can see, these “three” words can apply to pretty much anything you can come up with. I’d like to invite you to share with us in the comments some situations that you initially thought were poor (or great) that turned out to be great (or not so great) with us in the comments section.

For the folks who are visual learners:

When was the Last Time You Unplugged?

I’ve been in the midst of traveling a lot recently (), DC to Ottawa, Ottawa to Toronto, Toronto to Niagara Falls, back to Toronto, and now back to Ottawa (and in about a week), back to DC. In this time, especially when I was going from LA to DC, I have, somewhat out of necessity, had to “unplug” from my usual comings and goings on the internet. In this time, I have rediscovered how liberating it is to be away from technology.

Do you remember the last time you unplugged?

It might sound scary at first, turning off the blackberry, putting away the iPad, shunning your iPod, leaving the TV room, and just being with your “thoughts.” Or even just being quiet with yourself. I don’t have the statistics in front of me, but I would bet that there are a fair number of people who have tried this temporary “unplugged-ness” who, at first, were probably quite anxious about it. Maybe there were trepidations about what would happen to x, y, or z while they weren’t able to respond immediately. Eventually (at least that’s the hope), these types of people realize that the greater world (and even their more immediate world) still goes on without their interacting with it. Strange, huh?

In preparing to write this post, I did a few searches and found that there are nearly 6 million results for the search query: “.” An interesting result: .

Straight from the :

It’s an epidemic. It can strike anyone. It begins harmlessly enough… maybe with a cell phone, an online social network profile, or an IM. But before long, the electronic screens invade every corner of your life.

There’s a name for this tragic and extremely annoying condition: Screen Addiction.

But there is hope. Send an intervention to someone you care about! Help them take the first step towards recovery.

There’s also a and a form you can fill out to send to your friend with a number of drop-down menus, which, depending on your mood, can be quite comedic (or quite unfortunate, should the intended recipient actually be exhibiting some of the tendencies). Overall, I think the site could be quite handy for an “electronic” intervention (which may be the only way of reaching someone who has a fear of unplugging).

I think the most important thing to consider with regard to “unplugging” is moderation. Someone who spends 14 hours a day with their laptop or the blackberry glued to their thumbs is probably, at some point, going to need a day or two where this isn’t the case. I can’t imagine it’s very welcomed by the body (even if their ). In the end, you can’t force your friends to “unplug” themselves from their technology, but you can lead by example. As the title asks, “when was the last time you unplugged?”

The “Secret” to a Happy Life: Psst, It’s not really a Secret at All

I’m still fairly young by most standards, but I’ve had quite a (both formal and informal). In that time, I have learned (at least I’d like to think so) a thing or two about myself and other humans (by way of my time in psychology). Sometimes, I like to sit in a coffee shop on a busy street corner and just watch “us” interact with “us.” It can be quite entertaining — I recommend doing it at least once.

As I watch these people about, I’m struck by the constant string of perplexed faces. More than that, there are a number of folks who don’t look happy. There could be any number of reasons for that, so I won’t speculate, but I will group them together. Meaning, the expression on their face, I would gather, has to do with something they are thinking. This thing that they are thinking causing this uncomfortable expression, more than likely, is unpleasant. Some would even say that .

So we’ve got the group of folks thinking things that are causing unpleasant feelings. I pan to the right and I see a couple arguing on the street. Relationships can be fickle, so who knows what the surface argument is about. The underlying argument, more than likely, has to do with something that one person is thinking. It’s a similar situation to those who are walking down the street with strange looks on their faces, only in this instance, we have the people expressing themselves (outwardly) in an intentional (or sometimes, not-so-intentional) manner.

There’s the folks thinking and walking and then there’s the arguing folks. There are other examples I could bring up, but let’s stick with these two for now.

I’d like you to imagine these interactions, these people walking and thinking or the couple arguing, if both parties (or the singular party) didn’t assume anything. How would the interaction look different if the rule was to “assume nothing.” Seriously now, take a second to imagine the scenario in your head — (I’ll wait). Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Hey, welcome back. What did you notice? Did the interaction take place differently? I bet it did. Let’s take a closer look.

With the people who are walking and thinking, the looks on their faces are evidence of the thoughts they are having. These thoughts are likely about someone (or something) that isn’t going the way they hoped it would. What’s the underlying cause: assumptions. These people are assuming that what has happened wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) happen. If we eliminate this preliminary step of assumption, the reality that exists is no longer at odds. It just is. There’s nothing to be disdainful about. (It’s pretty hard to be angry with reality.)

Let’s move on over to the couple. Let’s say the are arguing about the cost of parking. One person wants to park on the street, while the other wants to look for more inexpensive parking. The one who wants to look for more inexpensive parking may be operating under the assumption that a) there will be less expensive parking somewhere else, and/or b) we don’t have the money to afford this much for parking. Part b) of that sentence assumes that there won’t be more money coming in from (anywhere or more specifically, an unexpected source). Maybe, when they are hanging their coats up at home, a $20 bill falls out of the pocket — boom! Paid for parking.

Or how about another example that I bet most of us can relate to. You’re driving down the highway in the “fast lane” when all of a sudden, you start to come up really fast on someone causing you to slam on your brakes. How dare they make you have to slam on your brakes. Who do they think they are? You may begin to tailgate (I hope not!) or you may slow down or you may try to pass them on the right (again, I hope not!) But what’s the underlying cause for your anger? You may say that it’s because that person shouldn’t be driving slow in the fast lane or maybe you think (as part of the first half of this sentence), they should move over if someone quickly approaches from behind. I went to driving school when I was a teenager and I don’t remember hearing those “laws.” So, what are they? These are assumptions we carry about driving on the highway and we think that people are supposed to abide by our assumptions.

My purpose in writing this is not to make you feel bad about yourself (or your assumptions), but simply to shed light on the idea that there may be some assumptions that are contributing (maybe even causing) you to feel the things you think you are justified in feeling. And in the moment, you probably feel infinitely justified. However, once the emotion has passed, I would encourage you to look back and see if you can identify an “assumption” that you may have been operating under during that time of distress.

The Perfect Diet – *Guaranteed!

StrawberriesIn my two most recent posts in the public policy series, I’ve addressed food and healthcare. Clearly, these are both very intricately connected to diet. The food one consumes is directly related to their diet and one’s healthcare is also affected (positively/negatively) as a result of their diet. Meaning, if I eat McDonald’s for the next 30 days like Morgan Spurlock, my health will seriously deteriorate. Today, I thought I’d talk about “the perfect diet.”

With quotations, did you know, that there are over 1,000,000 returns for “the perfect diet?” I think that’s incredible. For the phrase, “the best diet,” there are over 26,000,000 returns. Diet by itself will give you nearly 600,000,000 returns. From my estimation, it would seem that this is a pretty important issue to people and rightfully so. Did you know that most cells in the human body renew themselves? Meaning, the cells that make up the skin on your arm will not be the same cells that make up the skin on your arm in 2 or 3 months (give or take). So what does that mean? Where do we get more cells? Or more accurately, where do we get the means with which to make new cells?

Food.

Food is the “fuel” of the body. Some believe they don’t even need food, only sunlight, but I won’t go into detail about that.Utilizing two Christmas gifts (the Real Food Daily Cookbook and a stellar Williams Sonoma loaf pan) I made this tempeh loaf and I'm very excited to say that it was great. Tempeh is one of those foods that I feel I should eat more of, but it can be a challenge because on the whole, I'm not super into it though I know it's a highly nutritious food that would be a good thing to work into my diet more. I think this loaf will do the trick. Yum. And with garlic green beans and mashed potatoes...a perfect meal for a cold New England winter night...except that it's been in the mid and upper 60s here. Oh well, perfect comfort meal for anytime of year. Again, food is the fuel of the body. However, this ‘energy source’ for the body isn’t always presented and consumed in its simplest form. Meaning, the body usually needs to break down the food into parts, such that the energy can be harvested from the food and directed to the appropriate cells. It’s said that there are three main groups of food: carbohydrates (starch or sugar), fat, and protein [of course we could quibble over just how many groups there are, but this is what was written in the previous reference, so I’m going with it.] It’s these different groups of food, (and the way our body processes food), where the discussion about diets usually diverges.

Some people think you should have a low-carbohydrate diet, while others think you should have a no-carbohydrate diet. Some advocate for veganism. Some advocate for what could be seen as a “less stringent” form of veganism — vegatarianism — which has many degrees to it. Some advocate a slow-carb diet. I could go on and on with the various types of diets that are out there. I’m sure you’ve probably tried or heard about a diet that I haven’t listed.

~

I’m here to tell you today that there is a perfect diet out there for you — I promise. You may be here in search of it. I’ve been blessed with “good genes” and the motivation to stay relatively fit, which has allowed me to eat pretty much whatever I’ve wanted with gaining weight. I don’tI've been following Tim Ferriss' slow-carb diet as outlined in his book The Four Hour Body. Usually I eat chicken or fish, and occasionally steak. Always black beans or lentils, and always nutrient rich vegetables. This is a typical lunch, exactly three weeks and one day after starting (here's the corresponding blog post). Today was one of those days when I completely forgot to take a photo specifically for Project 365. I meant to, but it slipped my mind. When I woke up on Wednesday, I realized I had forgotten. There was exactly one photo I took the entire day, and this is it. I've been sending photos of my meals to my girlfriend (who is also doing the Fit Challenge with me, although using a different diet) and that's what this photo was intended for. But... it now gets to do double-duty as my Project 365 photo of the day. mean to sound boastful and at the same time, some may be jealous of this. I think there are a number of reasons as to why my level of health (as gauged through body fat % and weight) is as good as it is, but I’ll save that for another day.

Holding my physical health constant, I’ve been able to try a number of different diets. Growing up, I was fortunate enough to have a mother who cooked a variety of cuisines (from Chinese to Indian to Mexican to Italian, etc.). As an adult, I’ve also had the good fortune of trying a couple of different diets. As you’ll note from our Sport & Performance Psychology Resources, we recommend Brendan Brazier’s books — The Thrive Diet being his book on diet, of course. For a time, I ate exclusively what was mandated through the The Thrive Diet. You’ll note that Brazier is a vegan, so all of his recipes are vegan. More recently, I experimented with Tim Ferriss’ diet from the 4-hour body. Ferriss advocates a slow-carb diet, which I mentioned in listing off diets earlier in this post.

In my experimenting with these diets, (and weighing it against how I felt when not on these diets), and then reading reports of how people (fared) with these diets, I came to realize that there’s something that I haven’t read with regard to diets (or maybe I have and just don’t remember seeing it) — it’s personal. Literally, it’s personal. One could read and try thousands of diets from Alicia Silverstone’s to Suzanne Somers’ and still never find the perfect diet. I think that this is the case because there is no perfect diet for everyone. I think Ayurveda is on the right track when they talk about one’s Dosha (or body type). Meaning, we can group certain The largest QOTSA headline crowd to date 7300 people at Queens Of The Stone Age, Lotto Arena, Antwerp, Belgium 2 March 2008 This image is CC so you can view the full size and find yourself it also happens to be one of the largest group portraits I've ever taken, although i have larger crowdsbody types together and give them a constitution for what people with these body types should typically eat (and not eat). Of course, there are blends of the doshas, and exceptions.

The main takeaway is that there are almost 7 billion people on the Earth. To my wisdom, I would argue that there are just as many “perfect” diets out there. No one can tell you what the perfect diet is for you — only you can assess that. I would encourage you to try things out. Try diet-x or diet-y, but if you don’t feel good after trying it (giving it the appropriate amount of time, of course), then maybe that diet’s not for you. And maybe you don’t find the “perfect” diet with regard to someone else’s plan. Maybe you blend diet-j and diet-w to your new diet — and you write a book about it. When it comes to your body, you are one of the most qualified.

*Disclaimer: Because America is known for being a society of litigation, I thought it necessary to say that I, and Genuine Thriving, cannot be held responsible for your decisions based on reading this post. I am not a physician, nor do I hold any degrees in nutrition, so before making any changes to your diet, I would be remiss if I didn’t recommend you consult a physician or educated professional.

Complementary and Preventive Medicine: Healthcare & American Public Policy, Part 5

: Economics
: Campaign Finance & Elections
: Education
: Food

On March 23, 2010, you may have seen many Facebook profiles switch over to the picture on the right. This is a picture of President Obama signing the into law. Most of the people of these Facebook profiles who displayed this picture would be supporters of the movement to improve healthcare in the United States. In fact, the bill that President Obama signed into law was intended to do just that.

Truth be told, I haven’t read the entire bill, but . While you can never ‘absolutely’ trust Wikipedia, it is still good for gaining an overview. In skimming over the Wikipedia article for this bill, we learn a number of things that this bill has done that could be perceived as steps in the right direction for American Healthcare:

  • Medicaid eligibility is expanded to include all individuals and families with incomes up to 133% of the poverty level.
  • Improved benefits for Medicare prescription drug coverage are to be implemented.
  • Changes are enacted which allow a restructuring of Medicare reimbursement from “fee-for-service” to “bundled payments.”
  • Low income persons and families above the Medicaid level and up to 400% of the poverty level will receive subsidies on a sliding scale if they choose to purchase insurance via an exchange (persons at 150% of the poverty level would be subsidized such that their premium cost would be of 2% of income or $50 a month for a family of 4).
  • Additional support is provided for medical research and the National Institutes of Health.
  • The law will introduce minimum standards for health insurance policies and remove all annual and lifetime coverage caps.
  • The law mandates that some health care insurance benefits will be “essential” coverage for which there will be no co-pays.

These are only some of the things that the bill changes with regard to healthcare law, not to say that this isn’t already a huge number of changes all by themselves. Michael Moore did a documentary on healthcare in the United States a few years back. The movie was called . While some of the things that Moore is lambasting have changed as a result of this legislation, I’m pretty sure that this bill doesn’t address all of the concerns that Moore raised in his movie.

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The one thing I would have liked to have seen more of in the bill that President Obama signed into law over a year ago, is more . Being a in what could be classified as CAM, I’ve seen the benefits of this important part of healthcare. And the modality that is not nearly as much of a household name as say, , , or (which includes ). In 2002, 36% of adults said that they had used some form of CAM in the last 12 months. .  That’s nearly 4 in 10 Americans who use CAM. [All of these statistics are from the , which is one of the many centers that make up the (a government agency).]

For comparison’s sake, in 2006, 54% of Canadians reported having used CAM within the last 12 months, which was up 4% (from 50%) in 1997 (). In looking closer at the profiles of  and as rated by the World Health Organization (WHO), I wasn’t completely surprised to find differences. There was one major statistic that stood out to me: obesity. Some argue as to whether or not , but as it stands, . In the WHO health profiles of Canada and the US, Canada’s obesity percentage is significantly lower than the US. The percentage of adults 20+ years of age, in 2008, that were classified as obese by the WHO: . Holding all variables the same (20+, 2008), but for Americans: . I’m not necessarily trying to say that Canadians are healthier because they are more likely to use CAM, but the correlation does seem to be there. Of course, to truly measure this, we’d need to do a study of health measures (before and after) of CAM users (and non-CAM users).

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I’ve given you some statistics about CAM, but haven’t yet explained it completely:

as a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine. Conventional medicine (also called Western or allopathic medicine) is medicine as practiced by holders of M.D. (medical doctor) and D.O. (doctor of osteopathic medicine;) degrees and by allied health professionals, such as physical therapists, psychologists, and registered nurses. The boundaries between CAM and conventional medicine are not absolute, and specific CAM practices may, over time, become widely accepted.

There’s one other bit of information that I want to cite from a :

This report demonstrates that there is significant underuse of effective preventive care in the United States, resulting in lost lives, unnecessary poor health, and inefficient use of health care dollars. All of the services examined in this report are extremely cost effective: they all provide an excellent return on investment. It is a national imperative to make these and other cost-effective preventive services affordable and accessible for all Americans. [emphasis added]

Much has been written in the past few months about America’s “.” As of 2008, the those of other countries relative to their [the healthcare costs in the US are nearly 16% of the total GDP, which is nearly 5% more than the “second place” country, Switzerland. For comparison’s sake, Canada is at 10%.] It takes a bit of foresight, but as the study above describes, it is imperative that the US (and other countries) significantly incorporate the effective use of preventive care into healthcare. Moreover, I think the diligent use of CAM (in conjunction with conventional medicine), paired with the idea of preventive care would dramatically reduce healthcare costs (for the government) and for its citizens.

If You’re Sick – Rest – It’s as Simple as That

I’ve spent more than half of the last week, taking up residence on the couch watching movies and old episodes of TV series ( and , if you’re curious). I wasn’t , but I also wasn’t myself. I was — what most of the world would call — sick. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time being sick, so I suppose it was kind of a ‘gift’ to get to experience what it was like to be sick again. There were some definite takeaways from being sick (that I didn’t remember from previous times I’d been sick).

Most of the time, when people are sick, they try to “push through” their illness. “Oh, I”m fine.” “I’ll be ok.” “Don’t worry about me.” Given the and the staying above 8% for the first time since the early ’90s, it’s not altogether surprising that people would try to push through their illness. Nobody wants to lose their job – much less, because they were sick. But have we considered the possibility that one might lose their job because they are working when they’re sick?

In a study published in the ten years ago, researchers came to the that, “In sicker hospitalized patients, performance on seven tasks of judgment was similar to that among children younger than 10 years of age.” Not that I don’t think 10-year olds are smart, but do you really want the 10-year old version of yourself trying to do your job? Probably not.

Another interesting study on this topic comes from research in , which is often associated with chronic fatigue syndrome. Researchers attempted to see if there were cognitive disorders within Fibromylagia. They used standardized neuropsychological tests and were able to conclude:

Compared with the Spanish population for age, sex and educational level, FM [Fibromyalgia] patients showed high frequency of cognitive dysfunction which could be included as mild cognitive disorders according to the [World Health Organization] (1992).

Like I said earlier, I don’t remember the last time I was sick, but this time, I noticed a definitive decrease in my cognitive function. It was kind of like feeling , but without the euphoria that most people associate with drunkenness. My partner would ask me simple questions and I couldn’t think up a response. It was a very sobering experience. In doing the background research for this post, I was surprised to not find more articles about impaired cognitive functioning when sick. Maybe it’s something that researchers aren’t interested in. I suspect, it’s more a function of . Which corporation would want to do research on this?

Some shifting the workweek from 5 days to 4, and some have even provided research that this is to our . While I am an advocate of the reduction of work, not in this way. I don’t think we should be working less days and more hours in those days. I think we should be working fewer hours. I’ll elaborate on this more when I address labor in my series on in America. Suffice to say, the harder we work ourselves, the more likely we are to breakdown. Humans are not machines, but we can use this analogy to understand the point. Eventually, from wear and tear, a machine is bound to breakdown (just as a human is, especially when it is overworked). If you use a machine when it instead needs to be mended, there could be irreparable damage. The same goes for a human. When one is sick, and one works, there could be irreparable damage.