Form a New Body/Mind Connection

Try doing everyday tasks with your non-dominant hand. For example, eat a meal using your left hand. Or, use it to manage your computer mouse. These activities stimulate the parts of your brain that handle fine motor control. Don’t worry, you can switch back if you start getting frustrated. This is a good warm-up exercise for your brain to help you wake up in the morning.

Get Into a Flame War

OK, not really. However, engaging in a civil online debate can boost your ability to think critically. Remember to stick with facts and well-reasoned arguments and leave the logical fallacies and name calling to others. Think of this as your resistance training (or long distance running if the debate goes on for a long time). Don’t overdo it, just push yourself to think and express yourself more clearly each day.

Focus Your Attention

Sometimes, you need to turn off the constant chatter in your brain to tap into the creative powers of your mind. An online labyrinth (not a maze) helps some people access their right brain more easily. Think of this as a yoga exercise for your brain to make it more flexible and healthy. It’s a great workout for right before you go to bed since it can help calm you down.

Like many health scares that end up creating changes in legislation, this one isn’t based on any real evidence of harm to humans. The studies conducted so far only show an increase in tumor activity in rodents – and only when 4-MI is consumed in staggering amounts. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) argued that the amount found in a can of soda far exceeds the recommended safe limit for human exposure. The FDA disagreed, stating that the levels of 4-MI found in soda are far too low to pose any actual health risk.

Nevertheless, the labeling requirement made it into law and soft drink companies aren’t going to fight it. To dig in their heels would only draw attention to some of the real risks associated with chugging down sugary beverages all day every day (as many Americans do). It’s a much better strategy to protest the law on principle while complying in practice. A couple of years from now, no one will even remember that caramel coloring used to have a different set of unpronounceable ingredients. As far as soft drink conglomerates are concerned, the less people think about how much soda they drink, the better. Hey, this could be the start of a brand new scare – the soda pop conspiracy!

• Stick close to home on the weekend leading up to the time change. Use this period to adjust your eating and sleeping habits in advance of DST.
• Open your bedroom blinds or curtains. Let more sunlight in early in the morning to help you wake up more easily.
• Learn to take power naps. Tools like Hemi Sync’s “Catnapper” CD can put you out like a light for 30 minutes and then wake you back up on cue. This may help you make up for lost sleep without making you feel groggy during the day.

However, swapping spit with your pets can introduce this foreign bacteria into your mouth, throat, and lungs. That’s what the MSN story is referring to. It’s not “cuddling” a pet that’s the problem. It’s sharing utensils, kissing pets on the face, and getting those slobbery doggy or kitty smooches on the mouth in return. The patients described in the story simply had respiratory tract infections from P. multicoda. They responded well to standard antibiotics. It’s unclear if the patients just went to the doctor with a sore throat or if they really found the infection “scary”. The upshot is that saliva of pets can make you sick if you ingest too much of it. Perhaps you could also get a hairball from licking your cat. This news story is no reason not to pet and comfort your furry friends as they make their final transition.

How do supposedly sterile instruments carry around a load of deadly bacteria? This can happen through any number of errors or malfunctions. A breakdown anywhere along the line can allow contamination to flourish:

1. The equipment or instruments being sterilized are designed in such a way that not all surfaces can be thoroughly cleaned
2. The autoclave is not run on the correct cycle for the instruments being cleaned
3. The instruments are not properly bagged, preventing proper sterilization or allowing subsequent contamination
4. The autoclave is not functioning up to specifications (this is supposed to be detected through regular inspections and testing)
5. Instruments that shouldn’t be reused are sometimes cleaned and reused anyway
6. Steps get skipped or done incorrectly in the rush to make instruments available for surgery

At this time, there’s not much you can do to avoid this health risk since the truth about failures in sterilization procedures and protocols only make the news in particularly egregious cases. However, it doesn’t hurt to talk to your surgical staff about the hospital’s sterilization procedures. That way they know you’ll be keeping an eye out for HAI.

• They aren’t getting enough of the vitamin from sun exposure (and that they should reduce sun exposure to limit their risk of skin cancer)
• They aren’t getting enough from the few foods that contain naturally occurring vitamin D

In fact, according to analysis released by the National Center for Health Statistics, 2 out of 3 Americans are getting plenty of vitamin D (based on blood testing). Only 1% of the population tested as having levels that were too high. So, while the risks posed by excessive vitamin D intake are real, they affect only a very small number of people overall. Not everyone who takes extra vitamin D is necessarily going to “overdose” and end up with heart problems. At the same time, if you do have atrial fibrillation, you might want to have your doctor assess your vitamin D intake to see if you’re getting too much.

If you are unsure about whether you need vitamin D supplements, it makes sense to speak with a nutritionist and your physician. The answer will vary based on factors such as your age, whether you are pregnant, the latitude where you live, and your diet.

A dozen girls in a small town in New York State have all been diagnosed with a strange disorder that causes uncontrollable twitching. The girls run in the same circles on sites like FaceBook. Many have described their symptoms in detail online and some have even posted videos of themselves displaying their ticks for others to see. Although doctors say the symptoms are real and require treatment, they also point out that the disorder is psychogenic in nature. In other words, it’s being triggered by anxiety coupled with the normal human tendency to unconsciously mimic behaviors we see in others.

This is an ideal example of the harm health scares can do to someone with a suggestible mind. The suffering these girls are going through is very real – and completely unnecessary. At bottom, perhaps we are all wired to be hypochondriacs.

Like most studies of this kind, there’s still no actual evidence linking laptop use to lower fertility rates in men. Although the research makes for a great news story, fertility experts remain unconvinced about the significance of these findings – especially since the sperm wasn’t even in the subjects’ bodies any longer when it was exposed to the laptop. You can read more analysis over at MSN.

The truth is that using a laptop on your lap can contribute to problems from a heat-related rash called erythema ab igne to poor posture. So, you should probably be using a more ergonomically friendly computer anyway.

1. We really don’t know what effects these types of exposure have had on the population already or what problems these chemicals could cause over the long term
2. We undoubtedly do need stricter food quality controls – but dealing with these issues one “health scare” at a time is never going to do more than scratch the surface of the problem

To be perfectly honest, there’s probably no food that can be proven to be 100% “safe”. Your best bet to avoid health problems caused by food is still to:

• Eat a balanced diet consisting of a variety of nutritious foods
• Practice good food hygiene
• Pay attention to actual safety recalls for salmonella, E. coli, and other foodborne bacteria

Evaluate Availability

While you don’t necessarily want to join a gym that resembles a ghost town, you do want to make sure it isn’t so crowded that you can’t get the type of workout you desire. January is still the busiest time of the year for gyms, so you may actually want to wait until February rolls around before you start touring local gyms. This gives you an idea of how packed the establishment really is – and how long you can expect to wait for your favorite machines on an average day. Schedule your visit for the time of day when you usually expect to be at the gym (such as during the 6 PM “after work” rush hour). That way, you won’t be surprised by how busy it is when you actually start attending regularly.

What’s the Focus?

Different gyms cater to different clientele. One might be geared toward serious body builders. Another might be targeting the luxury/spa crowd. You should be comfortable and feel that you blend in reasonably well. It’s unlikely that other gym members will actually try to make you feel unwelcome. But you may shy away from working out even if the perception of not fitting in is just in your head. The focus of the gym will also determine what types of equipment and amenities are available. If you want to make swimming your main form of full body exercise, you wouldn’t want a gym that invests most of its money in great spinning equipment and doesn’t keep its pool in fantastic condition.

Meet the Trainers

There’s no rule saying you have to hire a personal trainer or fitness instructor to help you work out. But you should at least try a few classes to get a feel for how the gym is run. Ask questions about how long the various employees have been associated with the gym and how things have changed over the years. Gyms that have established long term relationships with instructors and trainers are most likely to care about your experience as well. If there are far fewer specialty classes available now than there were a few years ago, this may be a sign that the gym is cutting costs even at the expense of customer satisfaction.