Ladies, watch your heels!

NYTimes: Some women love their shoes so much it hurts. Researchers have found that smart shoe choices pay off in the long term: women who had mainly worn supportive footwear like sneakers or athletic shoes in their younger years cut their risk of common foot pain later in life by more than half, compared with women who had worn shoes that gave average support, like high heels hard-soled or rubber-soled ones. Read On

This post reminded me of:

Teebster's wicked witch walay black boots;

Monay's soft and cute ballerina shoes;

B's pamela anderson type shoes she likes

and SAK's long boots (heels walee -the ones she wore at lakeview :))

Music and Memories

Have you ever formed associations of music with memories.? Like a song reminds me of my friend because she sings it to me and similarly a song can remind you of the happy time when all friends were together, sang and listened to it repeatedly on a school trip? Or a song that used to play on the car's radio while you ride to school daily? Or a song that reminds you of someone who said something similar to you? All such songs have become special to me because of it reminds me of special people or hearty occasions. A recent study shows the memories and emotions that people associate with familiar songs are a part of the brain where the wiring for memories and thoughts about music appears to be linked.

"What seems to happen is that a piece of familiar music serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our head. It calls back memories of a particular person or place, and you might all of a sudden see that person's face in your mind's eye," study author Petr Janata, associate professor of psychology at the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis, said in a news release issued by the school. "Now we can see the association between those two things -- the music and the memories." Read On

Source: Health Day

This also reminds me how much I don't like the ring tone that's plays when the driver is here to pick me up for work in the morning. Some may feel this way about their alarm tones.

I like Green Tea, do you?

One good habit that I have developed ever since I started my professional career is to have at least one cup of green tea on work days. Not only does it taste good, it has plenty of benefits. Green tea is a far more healthier alternative to tea and coffee. Let me give you a tip; add few drops of lemon and it taste even better. If you want to make it more special, add ilaychie and saunf. :)
While I go and make my self some green tea, please read 25 reasons why you should be drinking green tea. Happy Reading

1. Green Tea and Cancer

Green tea helps reduce the risk of cancer. The antioxidant in green tea is 100 times more effective than vitamin C and 25 times better than vitamin E. This helps your body at protecting cells from damage believed to be linked to cancer.


2. Green Tea and Heart Disease

Green tea helps prevent heart disease and stroke by lowering the level of cholesterol. Even after the heart attack, it prevents cell deaths and speeds up the recovery of heart cells.


3. Green Tea and Anti-Aging

Green tea contains antioxidant known as polyphenols which fight against free radicals. What this means it helps you fight against aging and promotes longevity.

4. Green Tea and Weight Loss

Green tea helps with your body weight loss. Green tea burns fat and boosts your metabolism rate naturally. It can help you burn up to 70 calories in just one day. That translates to 7 pounds in one year.

5. Green Tea and Skin

Antioxidant in green tea protects the skin from the harmful effects of free radicals, which cause wrinkling and skin aging.Green tea also helps fight against skin cancer.

6. Green Tea and Arthritis

Green tea can help prevent and reduce the risk of rheumatoid arthritis. Green tea has benefit for your health as it protects the cartilage by blocking the enzyme that destroys cartilage.


7. Green Tea and Bones

The very key to this is high fluoride content found in green tea.It helps keep your bones strong.
If you drink green tea every day, this will help you preserve your bone density.

8. Green Tea and Cholesterol

Green tea can help lower cholesterol level. It also improves the ratio of good cholesterol to bad cholesterol, by reducing bad cholesterol level.

9. Green Tea and Obesity

Green tea prevents obesity by stopping the movement of glucose in fat cells. If you are on a healthy diet, exercise regularly and drink green tea, it is unlikely you'll be obese.

10. Green Tea and Diabetes

Green tea improves lipid and glucose metabolisms, prevents sharp increases in blood sugar level, and balances your metabolism rate.

11. Green Tea and Alzheimer's

Green tea helps boost your memory. And although there's no cure for Alzheimer's, it helps slow the process of reduced acetylcholine in the brain, which leads to Alzheimer's.

12. Green Tea and Parkinson's

Antioxidants in green tea helps prevent against cell damage in the brain, which could cause Parkinson's. People drinking green tea also are less likely to progress with Parkinson's.

13. Green Tea and Liver Disease

Green tea helps prevent transplant failure in people with liver failure. Researches showed that green tea destroys harmful free radicals in fatty livers.

14. Green Tea and High Blood Pressure

Green tea helps prevent high blood pressure.Drinking green tea helps keep your blood pressure down by repressing angiotensin, which leads to high blood pressure.

15. Green Tea and Food Poisoning

Catechin found in green tea can kill bacteria which causes food poisoning and kills the toxins produced by those bacteria.

16. Green Tea and Blood Sugar

Blood sugar tends to increase with age, but polyphenols and polysaccharides in green tea help lower your blood sugar level.

17. Green Tea and Immunity

Polyphenols and flavenoids found in green tea help boost your immune system, making your health stronger in fighting against infections.

18. Green Tea and Cold and Flu

Green tea prevents you from getting a cold or flu.Vitamin C in green tea helps you treat the flu and the common cold.

19. Green Tea and Asthma

Theophylline in green tea relaxes the muscles which support the bronchial tubes, reducing the severity of asthma.

20. Green Tea and Ear Infection

Green tea helps with ear infection problem. For natural ear cleaning, soak a cotton ball in green tea and clean the infected ear.

21. Green Tea and Herpes

Green tea increases the effectiveness of topical interferon treatment of herpes. First green tea compress is applied, and then let the skin dry before the interferon treatment.

22. Green Tea and Tooth Decay

Green tea destroys bacteria and viruses that cause many dental diseases. It also slows the growth of bacteria which leads to bad breath.

23. Green Tea and Stress

L-theanine, which is a kind of amino acids in green tea, can help relieve stress and anxiety.

24. Green Tea and Allergies

EGCG found in green tea relieves allergies.So, if you have allergies, you should really consider drinking green tea.

25. Green Tea and HIV

Scientists in Japan have found that EGCG (Epigallocatechin Gallate) in green tea can stop HIV from binding to healthy immune cells.What this means is that green tea can help stop the HIV virus from spreading.

Courtesy: A friend

MYTH: 8 glasses of water a day

NYTimes : I had long believed that eight glasses of plain water a day were important to keep the body hydrated but it turns out that the toilet paper manufacturers were behind this notion. Researchers have been unable to find scientific support for it. The body’s need for liquids can be met in many ways, including drinking coffee, tea and eating fruits and vegetables with a high water content.

For details of this myth and more health related myths read the source article Health 'Facts' you only thought you knew

THOU SHALT UNPLUG

There has been much talk and concern about the rise in Virtual addiction. Earlier today I was reading this article. And I agree to it that some of us (including myself) are too plugged in. Ask yourself, can you survive one day completely cut off from technology? Ok, one day is bearable but imagine one whole week disconnected from the internet; no web browsing, no polling of inbox, no blogging, no watching videos on youtube, no chatting, no facebook, no skimming through e- magazines and headlines; in short absolutely no web browsing. Yikes!

Why does furniture polish have real lemons but food has artificial lemon flavor?

Have you ever wondered why food products have artificial Lemon flavor and furniture polish has real lemons?

When people inhale the first smoke from a cigarette they get dizzy, light headed and feel nauseous but they keep puffing thinking, oh I'll get used to it. But, if they taste food that makes them dizzy, light headed and nauseous they think, oh this food is bad I'm not going to eat it.

When people witness a car accident on icy roads they think, oh the road is slippery over there so I'll use the other lane. When people are at a funeral of someone who has died of disease due to a bad diet they eat the same kind of bad food with the family after the funeral.

Nobody would let a 10-year-old smoke cigarettes because it's going to harm their health but we feed processed foods, sugar, and junk food loaded with chemicals that will harm their health.

We put our babies in car seats because we want to protect them and of course it's the law. Then we feed them foods with synthetics and chemicals.

Grocery stores do not have food, they have products to make food.

If grocery stores have isles labeled Health Food, does this mean all the other food is un-health food or death food?

Add your own "This just doesn't make sense" food or health thought here

Source: Whole Food and More

Here is one of my own : It's funny how some of my friends who are on a fitness diet and craving to lose weight consciously order a double beef cheese burger or a sizzling meaty steak or a lasagne with a DIET COKE. Nevermind all the meat, the diet drink will surely compensate for the fatty calories.

The Claim: Cold Water Boils More Quickly Than Hot Water.

The New York Times: Really? The claim is repeated so often that many people accept it as fact. But according to scientists, the notion that a body of cold water will reach boiling temperature more quickly than an identical body of hot water under the same parameters is simply false.

This kitchen myth may have started as a way to encourage people to cook with cold water, not hot, which can contain more impurities. It may also have its origins in the fact that cold water generally gains heat more rapidly than water that is already hot, though it will not boil faster.

But under the right circumstances, the reverse phenomenon can occur, and hot water can freeze more quickly than cool water.

Part of the reason appears to be that hotter water loses mass to evaporation, and because it has less mass, less energy is needed to freeze it. That phenomenon was described as far back as 350 B.C. by Aristotle. The phenomenon is now known as the Mpemba effect, named after Erasto B. Mpemba, a student who noticed it in 1963 while using boiled milk to make ice cream and reintroduced the concept to the scientific literature.

A study published in the American Journal of Physics in 2006 described a number of reasons for the phenomenon.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Cold water does not boil faster than hot water, but hot water can freeze more quickly than cool water.

Click here to learn about the Seven great medical myths posted earlier on Syra Star.

Mobiles linked to disturbed sleep

BBC: Using a mobile phone before going to bed could stop you getting a decent night's sleep, research suggests.The study, funded by mobile phone companies, suggests radiation from the handset can cause insomnia, headaches and confusion.It may also cut our amount of deep sleep - interfering with the body's ability to refresh itself. Read On

This research suggests that if you need to make a make a phone call in the evening it is much better to use a land line

Scientists use monkey's brain signals to control robot

Computer World: Scientists in the U.S. and Japan have successfully used a monkey's brain activity to control a humanoid robot over the Internet. This research may only be a few years away from helping paralyzed people walk again by enabling them to use their thoughts to control exoskeletons attached to their bodies.
The brains signals of the monkey were transmitted over the internet and fed into a humanoid robot that immediately began to respond to the monkey's brain activity -- walking at the same pace, slowing down when the monkey slowed, and changing its walking pattern to exactly match the animal's. Read More

This research reminds me of a cute movie; Ratatouille in which a rat controls a humans action by pulling his hair and helps him make the delicious of dishes.

Treatment through Colors

Several ancient cultures, including the Egyptians and Chinese, practiced chromotherapy, or using colors to heal. Chromotherapy is sometimes referred to as light therapy or colourology and is still used today as a holistic or alternative treatment.

In this treatment:

• Red was used to stimulate the body and mind and to increase circulation.


• Yellow was thought to stimulate the nerves and purify the body.


• Orange was used to heal the lungs and to increase energy levels.


• Blue was believed to soothe illnesses and treat pain.


• Indigo shades were thought to alleviate skin problems.

Read More on Color Psychology

The seven great medical myths

Reuters: - Reading in dim light won't damage your eyes, you don't need eight glasses of water a day to stay healthy and shaving your legs won't make the hair grow back faster.

These well-worn theories are among seven "medical myths" exposed in a paper published Friday in the British Medical Journal.

Despite frequent mentions in the popular press of the need to drink eight glasses of water, researchers found no scientific basis for the claim.

The other six "myths" are:

*Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight

The majority of eye experts believe it is unlikely to do any permanent damage, but it may make you squint, blink more and have trouble focusing.

*Shaving makes hair grow back faster or coarser

It has no effect on the thickness or rate of hair regrowth, studies say. But stubble lacks the finer taper of unshaven hair, giving the impression of coarseness.

*Eating turkey makes you drowsy

It does contain an amino acid called tryptophan that is involved in sleep and mood control. But turkey has no more of the acid than chicken or minced beef. Eating lots of food and drink at Christmas are probably the real cause of sleepiness.

* We use only 10 percent of our brains

This myth arose as early as 1907 but imaging shows no area of the brain is silent or completely inactive.

* Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death

This idea may stem from ghoulish novels. The researchers said the skin dries out and retracts after death, giving the appearance of longer hair or nails

*Mobile phones are dangerous in hospitals

Despite widespread concerns, studies have found minimal interference with medical equipment.

A potential solution to sleep problems

BusinessWeek: Forget taking pills or counting sheep. Just make sure you can answer yes to five simple questions, and you're on your way to a restful night

This evening before you go to bed, ask yourself the following five questions:

1. Did I avoid causing harm?

2. Did I make things better?

3. Did I respect others?

4. Was I fair?

5. Was I compassionate

If you can answer yes to all five questions, you will be almost guaranteed to have peaceful, uninterrupted slumber (assuming, of course, you have no physical problems preventing you from sleeping well). You will deserve this pleasant reward, because you took the high road when it might have been easier to take the low one. Read On

Put Nightmares to bed

Health Day: Nightmares can be triggered by factors including stress, medications, fear, sleep disorders, or a recent loss.

Here are suggestions to help conquer bad dreams, courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine:

• Reduce stress by talking to friends and relatives about what's bothering you.
• Try relaxation techniques to reduce stress and anxiety.
• If you started having nightmares after starting a new medication, talk to your doctor to find out if it could be causing your sleep problems.
• If you're taking illegal drugs or drinking alcohol to excess, join a support group to help you stop using these substances.
• Get regular exercise.
• Start a regular sleep schedule. Going to bed and waking up at the same time each day may help prevent nightmares.

Body's Clock Never Adjusts to Daylight Savings Time

You can't fool Mother Nature, experts say

Health Day: Changing to daylight savings time may give people an hour more of sunlight, but it appears that their internal body clocks never really adjusts to the change, German researchers report.

In fact, daylight savings time can cause a significant seasonal disruption that might have other effects on our bodies, according to the report in the Oct. 24 online edition of Current Biology.

"When you change clocks to daylight savings time, you don't change anything related to sun time," explained lead researcher Till Roenneberg of Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. "This is one of those human arrogances -- that we can do whatever we want as long as we are disciplined. We forget that there is a biological clock that is as old as living organisms, a clock that cannot be fooled. The pure social change of time cannot fool the clock."

People's circadian rhythm -- the body's internal clock -- follows the sun and changes depending on where you live. It actually changes in four-minute intervals, exactly the time it takes for the sun to cross one line of longitude, Roenneberg explained. Read On

Brain Study: Sleepy, grumpy and...primitive

Reuters: A few nights without sleep can not only make people tired and emotional, but may actually put the brain into a primitive "fight or flight" state, researchers said on Wednesday.
Brain images of otherwise healthy men and women showed two full days without sleep seemed to rewire their brains, re-directing activity from the calming and rational prefrontal cortex to the "fear center" -- the amygdala.
"It's almost as though, without sleep, the brain had reverted back to more primitive patterns of activity, in that it was unable to put emotional experiences into context and produce controlled, appropriate responses," said Matthew Walker of the University of California Berkeley, who led the study. Continued....

A Bad Marraige Can Break Your Heart...Literally

Wired News: A lousy marriage might literally make you sick. Marital strife and other bad personal relationships can raise your risk for heart disease, researchers reported Monday.What it likely boils down to is stress - a well-known contributor to health problems, as well as a potential byproduct of troubled relationships, the scientists said.
In a study of 9,011 British civil servants, most of them married, those with the worst close relationships were 34 percent more likely to have heart attacks or other heart trouble during 12 years of follow-up than those with good relationships. That included partners, close relatives and friends.Read On

What drives chocolate cravings?

We think about it, dream about it, and probably just sometimes eat a bit too much of it. Some people even go so far as to claim to be addicted to it. But what drives our cravings for chocolate?

Click here to find out.

The Link between friends and obesity

So you think it's the cookies, chips and bread that make you fat?
Well, maybe. But in a major study, UCSD and Harvard researchers point a finger at an unlikely culprit: the subtle – perhaps even subconscious – influence of spouses, family members and, most important, close friends.

If those people become overweight or obese, you'll be more likely to think that such a body shape and the lifestyle behaviors contributing to it are OK. The result: You are more likely to gain pounds within a couple of years.
In other words, obesity might spread through “person to person” social interactions, much like the influenza virus spreads through the air.
Likewise, the reverse is true: If your family and trusted friends become thin, you are more likely to lose weight as well.

To Read More, Click Here and Here