Nutrition: Drinking tart cherry juice daily could help reduce the severity of insomnia and time spent awake after going to sleep, according to a new study published in the Journal of Medicinal Food. In an experiment, adults who drank eight ounces of tart cherry juice in the morning and evening for two weeks reported significant reductions in insomnia severity and saved about 17 minutes of wake time after going to sleep on average. The researchers suspect tart cherries’ natural benefits could be due in part to their relatively high content of melatonin – a natural antioxidant in cherries with established ability to help moderate the body’s sleep-wake cycle. Melatonin is produced naturally by the body in small amounts and it plays a role in inducing sleepiness at night and wakefulness during the day. Cherries may help boost the body’s own supply of melatonin and increase sleep efficiency. Read More…
A new friend and I had a bet going on how to pronounce famed psychologist Abraham Maslow’s surname, and this prompted me to do a little research and revisit some of this visionary’s landmark concepts. Maslow is the father of humanistic psychology (I say it’s “maslov”, that’s how my college psych teacher pronounced it – Maslow’s parents were Russian immigrants after all, and we’ve all heard what happens to ‘w’s in Russian accents; my friend says it’s “maslow” as in “low price guarantee” – he was born in Brooklyn, which makes him American and likely to have adopted that pronunciation). Unlike Freud, who focused on studying mental illness, Maslow researched and developed theories about the healthy aspect of the mind and human potential, which of course is so very HLife of him (our focus is optimal-centered, not on a sick or barely functional concept of health), so I had to share some of his less-talked-about work with you, which I found fascinating: The humanistic concept of values. Read More…
Psychology: Looks like washing your hands has more than a physical benefit. A recent study concludes that the activity “wipes the slate clean,” affecting us psychologically by removing doubts about recent choices, in addition to the feeling of being clean of germs as well as the already established link to feeling morally restored. “It’s not just that washing your hands contributes to moral cleanliness as well as physical cleanliness, as seen in earlier research” said Spike W. S. Lee, a doctoral candidate in social psychology. “Our studies show that washing also reduces the influence of past behaviors and decisions that have no moral implications whatsoever.” The researchers say that the “clean slate” effect may be relevant to many choices and decisions in life, not just the complex ones where ‘good behavior’ is implicated (for example, cheating) but also with simple choices like whether to buy one car over another (buyer’s remorse). The study was published in the May 7th issue of Science. Read More…
Cancer: Scientists in California are reporting for the first time that walnuts, already famous for being rich source of omega-3 fatty acids that fight heart disease, reduce the size and growth rate of prostate cancer in test animals. The researchers, who shared their findings at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, said that walnuts should be a part of a prostate-healthy diet, along with lots of fruits and vegetables that also contain anti-cancer properties. Eating the walnuts whole is key, “because when a single component of a food linked to cancer prevention has been tested as a supplement, that food’s cancer-preventative effects disappear in most cases,” concluded Paul Davis, Ph.D, who headed the study. Read More…
Nutrition: We now know that spices have antioxidants – oregano and others typically used in the Mediterranean diet – but who’s got the most? According to research published in the Flavour and Fragrance Journal, cloves are king when it comes to these benefits. “Out of the five antioxidant properties tested, cloves had the highest capacity to give off hydrogen, reduced lipid peroxidation well, and was the best iron reducer”, said Juana Fernandez-Lopez, one of the authors of the study. The researchers hope that the high antioxidant properties of this and other spices will make the food industry consider them for usage in preserving food, instead of using synthetic chemicals that cause toxicity and other side effects. But, until then, you can just make some clove tea for yourself and enjoy the taste as well as the benefits. Read More…
Psychology: Looks like Trevor McKinney was right – paying it forward does work. Much in like the 2000 film with Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, a study done by UC San Diego and Harvard has now provided laboratory evidence that cooperative behavior is contagious and that it spreads from person to person. As illustrated by the experiment where strangers played a game, when people benefit from kindness, they “pay it forward” by helping others who were not originally involved, and this creates a cascade of cooperation that influences dozens more in a social network. “The flow of good and desirable properties like ideas, love and kindness is required for human social networks to endure,” said Nicholas Christakis, co-author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “In turn, networks are required for such properties to spread. Humans form social networks because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs.” Read More…
Parenting: Time to make some changes, minority mommies. Efforts to prevent childhood obesity should begin far earlier than currently thought – perhaps even before birth for some populations, according to a study. Research that tracked 1,826 women from pregnancy through their children’s first five years of life found that this was a key period for childhood obesity prevention, especially for minority children. “Almost every single risk factor in that period before age 2, including the prenatal period, was disproportionately higher among children,” said Elsie Taveras, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School. Looking at risk factors, researchers found that African-American and Hispanic infants were more likely than their Caucasian counterparts to be born small, gain excess weight after birth, begin eating solid foods before 4 months of age and sleep less. The good news: most of these can be modified by getting updated information, not just “wisdom” handed down through generations. The study was published in the online edition of the journal Pediatrics. Read More…
Today is the day you have been waiting for.
On New Year’s Eve, there was an eclipse/blue moon that activated us and put us on a path of change, cleansing and regeneration. This is a new year – a better year – and everyone we’ve spoken with can feel the goodness, even see it. Things are moving forward. They’re working out. Other stuff, inner stuff, pending stuff, is moving out from your cellular memory, through your mind and to the surface, showing up in your body. Your body is a map – it tells you what is going on inside of you that you cannot see. And you may have been seeing a lot of change.
Perhaps you have been feeling uncomfortable – sick even – physically…maybe you’ve been upset and had one of those “no more, I will not do this ever again” moments with a particular habit or pattern you have identified and want to dismiss for good. Read More…
Everyone is in detox mode in January – new year, new goals, new body. Great – let’s add to that: Let’s do a detox for the mind.
Detoxing the mind at the same time that we detox the body is extremely important because these two areas of you go hand-in-hand. Sometimes your body tells your mind what to do. But, mostly, it is your mind that is telling your body what to do. So, detoxing your mind is a natural step to detoxing your body.
What do we mean by detoxing the mind? Detoxing the mind means getting rid of triggers, thoughts, ideas, images and sounds that do not serve a positive purpose for your nourishment. As HLife is all about a healthy lifestyle and not a one-time temporary solution, it is also about maintaining awareness of what comes into and what goes out of your mind – being in control of your thoughts and focusing on healthy “mental food”. Read More…
Image via summitbotanicalsupply.com
Breast Cancer: Turmeric and pepper could help prevent breast cancer, a study revealed. Compounds in these spices may limit the growth of stem cells, the small number of cells that fuel a tumor’s growth, according to researcher published online in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Another study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that although there is a concern regarding the safety of soy food consumption among breast cancer survivors because of a chemical in soy that mimics estrogen, women in China who had breast cancer and a higher intake of soy food had a lower risk of death and breast cancer recurrence. “Patients with breast cancer can be assured that enjoying a soy latte or indulging in pad thai with tofu causes no harm and, when consumed in plentiful amounts, may reduce risk of disease recurrence,” said the researchers. Finally, research from a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences established, for the first time, that isolation and stress could be a factor in human breast cancer risk. Fortunately, all of these are factors we can influence through diet and lifestyle choices. Read More…
