Freeze Peach
I decided to elevate my thoughts about this excellent discussion of the marketplace of ideas to a new post. As I have said before we have a very difficult problem nowadays and I don ' t have a good answer. But here ' s how I think about it.Back in the good old 1790s there was no mass media as such. Every city had several newspapers, many of them very niche and frankly opinionated. The ideal of the allegedly neutral journalist as taught in school nowadays didn ' t really exist, although I suppose some people thought of themselves as more about giving the facts than advocating. In any case if you had something to say and did...
Source: Stayin' Alive - February 1, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Mundane Movies Meme
I posted a fairly simple challenge on Facebook at the weekend:
Make a movie mundane by subtly altering one word in the title. I'll start..."Radiators of the Lost Ark"
I expected a few friends to join in with the fun and for it to fizzle out quite quickly…I watched the first few entries dribble in and then went off and did something completely different. When I came back to Facebook a few hours later there were more than 500 comments, it quickly got to 600 and I added a few more of my own. It’s still going on, at the time of writing 745 comments, which is almost viral for one of my posts. I’d estimate th...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - January 18, 2021 Category: Science Authors: David Bradley Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs
Your Relationship With Pleasure
What is your relationship with pleasure like?
Do you experience and enjoy pleasure when you’re in the mood for it?
Do you have an addictive relationship with it?
Do you have an on-again, off-again relationship with it?
Does your relationship with pleasure feel healthy, supportive, and fun?
Is your relationship with pleasure simple or complex?
Here’s one of more interesting questions to ask yourself:
Do you trust pleasure?
And here’s another meaningful question:
What kind of relationship would you like to have with pleasure?
Pleasure is just pleasure. In its simplest form, it ...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - December 8, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Abundance Health Lifestyle Source Type: blogs
Freeze Peach
Many people seem confused about the concept of freedom of speech. The First Amendment literally constrains only congress. Here it is:Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.The courts generally understand that this also constrains the executive, since there cannot in principle be a law that gives the executive (i.e. the president) the power to violate these prohibitions. Subsequently, the 14th A...
Source: Stayin' Alive - October 28, 2020 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Coping with the loss of smell and taste
As I cut a slice of lemon for my tea one morning last March, I found that I could not detect the familiar zing of citrus. Nor, it turned out, could I taste the peach jam on my toast. Overnight, my senses of smell and taste seemed to have disappeared. In the days prior to that I’d had body aches and chills, which I ascribed to a late-winter cold — nothing, I thought, an analgesic and some down time couldn’t take care of. But later that day I saw a newspaper article about the loss of smell and taste in patients with COVID-19, and I realized that I’d likely caught the virus. While I was fortunate enough to eventually ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 19, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Leo Newhouse, LICSW Tags: Coronavirus and COVID-19 Ear, nose, and throat Mental Health Source Type: blogs
Grain-Free, Legume-Free, Sugar-Free Experiment
For the month of August, I’ve been doing a new dietary experiment. I’m eating grain-free, legume-free, and sugar-free. I’m doing this mainly out of curiosity to see what effect it has. I think I’m far enough along (about four weeks) that this would be a good time to share what I’ve learned.
The biggest adjustment was switching some common food sources, especially carbs. Instead of brown rice or rice noodles, I’ve been eating more potatoes, sweet potatoes, and starchy squash. Instead of beans or tofu, I’m eating more fruit, nuts, and veggies.
While I’ve removed refined s...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - August 28, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Health Lifestyle Source Type: blogs
My 5-Minute Vegan Breakfast
I often get asked what I eat as a vegan, so I’ll share one of my favorite breakfasts that I’ve been enjoying lately. I’ve eaten this simple meal for most days of the month.
Previously I would typically have steel cut oatmeal for breakfast, but this month I’m doing a 30-trial of eating grain-free, legume-free, and sugar-free. So I needed to figure out a breakfast that would satisfy those criteria.
This breakfast is also:
Quick to make (a few minutes tops)Quick to eatSatisfyingDelicious
Here we go…
2 sliced peaches (110 calories):
60g grain-free granola (340 calories):
...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - August 27, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Health Lifestyle Source Type: blogs
Appreciation Density
In the past 11 weeks, I’ve lost an average of 1.15 pounds per week, mainly just by logging what I eat. This simple practice has helped me tweak and adjust my meal choices even though I’m still eating the same foods as I was previously. I’m eating less food in terms of calories, but my current diet is actually more satisfying than before. Since there’s no sense of restriction or deprivation, it’s frictionless to maintain this approach.
Let’s say that the appreciation density of a meal is your overall physical and emotional satisfaction with it, divided by its calories:
Appreciation ...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - July 31, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Abundance Emotions Health Lifestyle Productivity Source Type: blogs
Studying Yourself
You can make a lot of interesting personal growth gains by studying yourself and your own responses instead of trying to follow someone else’s behavioral prescriptions. Studying yourself is especially useful in the areas of health and productivity habits.
What actually creates good results for you? Quite often you’ll find that what works best for you in real life won’t be found in any book or seminar. You can learn ideas from others to inspire your own experimentation, but you may get the best gains by assembling your own unique collection of behaviors and practices.
When doing self-experimentation,...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - July 6, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Health Lifestyle Productivity Source Type: blogs
Food Logging
If you’d like to raise your awareness about what you’re actually eating and how it affects you, food logging is a simple and effective way to do this.
Six weeks ago I decided to start keeping a log of everything I ate in a small notebook. I also keep track of calories. I wanted to raise my awareness of what I was eating and how calorically dense each meal was.
Computing the calories is easy. I use a small kitchen scale to weigh quantities of foods, and then I just ask a nearby smart device what the calories are. Usually Google or Alexa can give the correct response to a question like, “How many calo...
Source: Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog - June 28, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Steve Pavlina Tags: Health Source Type: blogs
Harvard Health Ad Watch: Are nutritional drinks actually good for you?
I first heard of nutritional drinks in the 1980s, early in my medical training. They were recommended for people struggling to maintain a healthy weight, often due to loss of appetite, cancer, or swallowing problems.
Since then, nutritional supplement drinks like Boost and Ensure have gone mainstream. Their widespread, primetime advertising aimed at a much broader audience has proven highly effective. The market for nutritional drinks is now worth many billions of dollars. In 2019, Ensure sales alone totaled nearly $400 million.
When you watch ads for nutritional drinks, do you wonder if you should start drinking them? Wil...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 20, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Health Healthy Eating Nutrition Vitamins and supplements Source Type: blogs
Senna: The True Ex-Lax
Constipation is one of those not-so-exciting subjects that affects both children and adults from time to time, but because it is so common, it warrants a closer look.
Bowel movements tend to occur about once a day after children have reached the age where their diet is largely comprised of solid food. Starchy foods, such as bananas, rice, grains, and flour, tend to make stools firmer. Foods high in fiber like peaches, plums, and apricots have more of a softening effect. In a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, a balance is struck between different foods to create stools that are soft enough to pass comfortably without bein...
Source: Conversations with Dr Greene - March 15, 2020 Category: Child Development Authors: Alan Greene MD Tags: Dr. Greene's Blog Constipation Herbal Source Type: blogs
My Testimony Today Regarding the Massachusetts Emergency Ban on the Sale of Electronic Cigarettes
Testimony of Michael Siegel, MD, MPHProfessor, Boston University School of Public HealthNovember 22, 2019The Department of Public Health justified its emergency order by arguing that removing vaping products from the market would protect the public – and especially youth – from the vaping-associated respiratory disease outbreak that has now affected more than 2,000 people and caused 47 deaths.However, unbeknownst to many, this emergency order wasnot successfulin removing all vaping products from the market. In fact, the Department ’s emergency order exempted – and therefore failed to remove from the market - a larg...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - November 22, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
Massachusetts State Senate Votes to Ban Almost All E-Cigarettes, But to Leave the Real Deadly Ones on the Shelves
In a move that defies public health logic, the Massachusetts Senate today voted for a bill that would ban the sale of virtually all e-cigarettes, but would allow non-mentholated real cigarette brands to remain on the shelves of all stores, including convenience stores and gas stations where youth have easy access to these products.There is simply no public health justification for taking e-cigarettes off the market but allowing youth to continue to have unfettered access to real tobacco products. The average annual death toll of these products is starkly different:Flavored e-cigarettes: 0Real cigarettes: 480,000Given the m...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - November 21, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
Policy Makers are Deceiving Themselves if They Believe Banning Flavored E-Cigarettes is Going to End Youth Vaping of Flavored Products
Major Exemption in Proposed Flavor Ban Leaves Most Kid-Friendly Flavors on the MarketThe most basic premise of the proposal to ban flavored e-cigarettes is that it will protect youth by preventing them from vaping flavored e-liquids. The flavors are the problem, so if we ban the flavors, we ' ll take care of the problem.Or so the thinking goes.The Rest of the StoryThe problem is that politicians are deceiving themselves if they think that a ban on flavored e-cigarettes is going to prevent youth from accessing flavored e-liquids. The truth is that all of the following flavors are exempt from the ban and will remain on the m...
Source: The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary - November 7, 2019 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
