“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” ~Henry de Bracton
I was talking with my dad yesterday over the phone, and he was commenting to me how he was so thankful that when he was younger he remained physically active. He is now seventy years old, but he is in good physical and mental shape.
He told me a story of when he was re-roofing his home about a year and a half ago, and an elderly gentleman walked by with a cane as he worked. The man told my dad that he wouldn’t find himself working on the roof like that. My dad asked him how old he was, and the man said that he was sixty-five years old! My dad was tickled that not only was he older than this other man, but that he was still able to ambulate to the point where he could get up on the roof to do a major project like that. By the way, he didn’t tell the man how old he was.
My dad said that it was important to him to keep physically active at a young age, and he is reaping the rewards today. He is in good shape — he has no health issues except for a slightly elevated blood pressure, so he only takes one medication for that. He has a good memory, and he plays golf more days than not when the weather is favorable.
There is a link between remaining physically active and Type-II diabetes. The more physically active you are, the more sensitive your body’s cells are to glucose. The more sensitive your cells are to glucose, the better your cells will be at metabolizing the glucose within your body, which takes it out of the circulation and moderates the secretion of insulin.
Research is now showing how Type-II diabetes is connected to degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. With decreased sensitivity to glucose, the hippocampus of the brain is less likely to get the nutrition it needs to make new brain cells, which will dramatically affect cognition and learning. Research also is suggesting “Increased insulin concentrations also appear to boost levels of beta-amyloid—a protein involved in the formation of senile plaques that can lead to Alzheimer’s.”
The bottom line is this — take care of your body now, when you can. Become physically active if you already aren’t. Don’t consume simple sugars and junk food. Be smart about your body and your diet. Your brain depends on it. If you take care of your body today, your brain will be around to take care of you later!
New research suggests that structurally the brain is not complex. This makes the workings of the brain and the mind even more amazing, in my opinion. Here’s the article:
“Fall down seven times, get up eight.” ~Japanese Proverb
I remember working in a shopping mall in customer service years ago. Part of my job, which I didn’t particularly care for, was to try to get people to sign up for a promotional credit card. I had to stand in the mall amongst the shoppers with a clipboard and try to get people to sign up for the card. It was nearly impossible to get anyone to even make eye contact with me, much less sign up for a card. This task was tremendously hard for me to accomplish, mostly because I don’t like chasing down people to sign up for something that I feel they really aren’t interested in. My feeling has always been if they were truly interested, they would come over and inquire about the product.
The part I liked the least about the whole campaign was having to deal with rejection. I never took the stress of rejection very well, especially in a sales environment. The blow of a “no” was enough to make me second-guess whether I should stand back up and try again. I probably would be a horrible telemarketer. 🙂
I am sure there are some of you reading this that feel the same way — you are adverse to rejection. The fear of the pain of being rejected is enough to prevent you from sticking your neck out there to try something in the first place. Then, there may also be some of you who, even when you know rejection is not only possible, but highly likely, still march forth and give it your best shot. Let me say that I admire you tremendously.
Is there a reason why some people are more resilient than others? Can someone “learn” to be more resilient by fearing the pain of rejection less? What is resilience, exactly?
From what I have been able to determine, resilience is the response to the body’s exposure to stress. To simplify, when our body is exposed to a stressful situation, our minds can potentially undergo a change. They can change chemically, or they can even change physically, with the growth of new brain cells or brain cell connections. Learning often takes place, and we learn from the painful experiences and plan out how we can avoid such pain in the future. Some people learn to avoid such pain in the future by simply giving up (and staying down, so to speak). They just don’t “get back up.”
An interesting study pointed out how it’s possible that we don’t all react to stress the same way. In some of us, stressful circumstances cause growth of new brain cells, and these new brain cells don’t “forget” the stressful events of the past very readily. A person who grows these new brain cells in response to stress is more likely to have adverse reactions to the stress, and therefore, less resilience, compared to someone who doesn’t grow new brain cells in response to the same stressful situation.
So it appears that resilience, after all, is based on genetic predisposition. Some people, in fact, are more resilient than others. Does this mean that all hope is lost for those who were born to be more adversely affected by stress and less resilient than others? I don’t think so. I think the neuroplasticity of the brain allows us to create in us the person we wish to be. In other words — mind over matter!
The key to becoming more resilient lies in its precursor — our response to stress. The better we are able to handle stress, the fewer new “traumatized” brain cells that are created, thus the more resilient we will be. I found some great articles on how to be more resilient, and you can find those here and here. If you don’t feel like reading all of these articles, here are the top three recommendations, in a nutshell:
1. Develop within yourself a positive self image and maintain a high self esteem. If you are more positive in general, you will handle stress better, because you remain more optimistic and positive overall.
2. Stay socially engaged. The more social support you have, the more people you can talk through your difficulties with, thus reducing your stress levels.
3. Be mindful, through meditative practices and focusing on gratitude, appreciation, and big-picture concepts. People who are more mindful of others and others’ experiences have a more broad perspective of how circumstances affect other people, which helps one gain a large-perspective view on events. By considering how other people are handling or have handled experiences, it helps you consider how to deal with a similar experience yourself. (In other words, you have a host of examples of ways to deal with the experience to pick from)
While I don’t like experiencing the pain of rejection, I now have a different perspective than I did on rejection that I did at the time I was working at the mall. I had been telling myself for years that I am not a good salesperson, and I think the reason why I was never a good salesperson was because I was telling myself (and convincing myself) it was true. I have a lot of work still to be done in the rejection department, but I know that by continuing to apply the concepts above I can learn to handle the stress of rejection better, and I can become as resilient as I want to be. I hope you can too!
“If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.” ~Anthony J. D’Angelo
A few weeks ago, my computer was working inefficiently. I was clicking and clicking away at icons and programs, but the computer just grinded away, with seemingly nothing working. I installed a program that was intended to detect malware and other potential threats to the computer (above and beyond my normal antivirus software), and sure enough, there was something that was on my computer that was dramatically affecting its performance. Once I was able to clear out the malware, the computer was able to function more effectively.
When we grumble and complain, or when we obsess over things that are beyond our control, with no real intention of solving any problems, or doing anything about our problems, it consumes our brain’s resources. Grumbling, complaining, spreading rumors and gossip, and the like are the “malware of the mind.” They consume an awful amount of the brain’s resources, keeping our brains from operating efficiently and effectively.
I know I have difficulty focusing on what is in my control sometimes, because it’s easier to just complain, and quite honestly, it sometimes feels good to do it! However, taking the time to focus on what I can do and what problems I can solve, in the end, is much more satisfying than doing nothing but complaining.
Let’s take time to clean out our “malware of the mind,” and let’s focus on how we can take control of our lives and what problems out there can be solved.
“A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.” ~William Arthur Ward
A little more than a year ago, I was watching television, and I saw this commercial. Something struck me about this commercial, particularly the main actor. You know how commercials are — they last only a few seconds and then they are gone. A few days later, I saw it again. I thought to myself, “It can’t be…No — it HAS to be…NO WAY! It is!”
It turns out that the well-known Stanley Steemer Carpet man is no other than Dave Theune. Dave grew up in a town a few miles from where I lived, and he was involved in a community theatre production that I was a part of back in 1998. We are the same age, and we had mutual friends, and so through mutual friends and the show we got to know each other a bit.
Dave is absolutely one of the funniest people I know. He is perfect for the part of the Stanley Steemer Carpet Man, and he has also been in several commercials as well. This talented artist is also a member of an improvisational comedy troupe, named “Old Milwaukee,” and he now lives in California. If you have ever tried improvisational acting before, you know very well that it is extremely hard to do, and you need to have a certain mind for that kind of humor and acting. Dave will be joining me on my radio show Monday, April 2, at 12 PM Central.
I learned how important humor was at reducing stress and improving one’s overall well being. In chiropractic school, I started out way to seriously, and I didn’t enjoy the learning process. Fortunately, about half way through my years at school, I met two great guys (thanks Ken and Eric) who helped save my academic career. They were hilarious. They showed me how to have fun and laugh a little (or a lot), but also how to balance that with hard work when it needed to be done.
Why is humor so beneficial to us? What’s going on in the brain and how do we process humor? Before we look at that, however, we need to look at what humor is. I would best define humor as the processing of paradoxical or inconsistent data entering the brain. Kids call it “being silly,” because you are coupling two or more items in a way that is not conventional. If you tell a child that you saw a horse wearing a dress, the child would tell you that you were silly because horses don’t wear dresses, and they would probably start laughing too.
It turns out that humor is an orchestrated process between several areas of the brain. When someone is starting to tell a joke (called the setup), it usually starts out in a very logical manner. This processing of the logical information is done on the left side of the brain. When the joke ends (called the punchline), the brain realizes that the end of the joke presented an unexpected and unfitting twist. Our frontal lobes process this information, and then, coupled with the right side of the brain, joins the processing of the left side of the brain to “get” the joke.
The benefits of humor can’t be denied. Sharing laughter with another person forms a connection between two individuals, which increases happiness and can increase intimacy with others. Laughter decreases the secretion of stress hormones which are known to suppress the immune system. The more you laugh and the happier you are, the healthier you generally are. Laughing can lead to relaxation of muscles, for up to forty-five minutes! Laughter also releases endorphins, which can alleviate pain and give us feelings of general well being. Also, laughter is good for the cardiovascular system, because laughter improves blood flow and improves the health of the vasculature.
Whenever I need a good laugh, I just take a look at myself in the mirror. I have enough to laugh about for days. 🙂 My daughter and I were being silly one day, and she took the picture you see on the right. You have to be able to have fun once in a while. Life’s too short to do otherwise, in my humble opinion.
So now you have an excuse to be a little sillier today. Your health depends on it! Have a wonderful, humorous, and happy day!
