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Early-Life Stress Can Disrupt Maturation of Brain’s Reward Circuits, Promoting Disorders
Summary: Researchers have identified a novel stress-sensitive pathway in the reward system of the brain that releases corticotropin-releasing hormone in response to stress. Adverse experiences cause this pathway to become overactive.
Source: UC Irvine
A new brain connection discovered by University of California, Irvine researchers can explain how early-life stress and adversity trigger disrupted operation of the brain’s reward circuit, offering a new therapeutic target for treating mental illness. Impaired function of this circuit is thought to underlie several major disorders, such as depression, substance abuse and excessive risk-taking.
In an article recently published online in Nature Communications , Dr. Tallie Z. Baram, senior author and UCI Donald Bren Professor and Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Pediatrics, Neurology and Physiology & Biophysics, and Matt Birnie, lead author and a postdoctoral researcher, describe the cellular changes in the brain’s circuitry caused by exposure to adversity during childhood.
“We know that early-life stress impacts the brain, but until now, we didn’t know how,” Baram said.
“Our team focused on identifying potentially stress-sensitive brain pathways. We discovered a new pathway within the reward circuit that expresses a molecule called corticotropin-releasing hormone that controls our responses to stress. We found that adverse experiences cause this brain pathway to be overactive.”
“These changes to the pathway disrupt reward behaviors, reducing pleasure and motivation for fun, food and sex cues in mice,” she said.
“In humans, such behavioral changes, called ‘anhedonia,’ are associated with emotional disorders. Importantly, we discovered that when we silence this pathway using modern technology, we restore the brain’s normal reward behaviors.”
Researchers mapped all the CRH-expressing connections to the nucleus accumbens, a pleasure and motivation hub in the brain, and found a previously unknown projection arising from the basolateral amygdala.
In addition to CRH, projection fibers co-expressed gama-aminobutyric acid. They found that this new pathway, when stimulated, suppresses several types of reward behaviors in male mice.
The study involved two groups of male and female mice. One was exposed to adversity early in life by living for a week in cages with limited bedding and nesting material, and the other was reared in typical cages.
As adults, the early adversity-experiencing male mice had little interest in sweet foods or sex cues compared to typically reared mice. In contrast, adversity-experiencing females craved rich, sweet food. Inhibiting the pathway restored normal reward behaviors in males, yet it had no effect in females. Researchers mapped all the CRH-expressing connections to the nucleus accumbens, a pleasure and motivation hub in the brain, and found a previously unknown projection arising from the basolateral amygdala. Image is in the public domain “We believe that our findings provide breakthrough insights into the impact of early-life adversity on brain development and specifically on control of reward behaviors that underlie many emotional disorders.
“Our discovery of the previously unknown circuit function of the basolateral amygdala-nucleus accumbens brain pathway deepens our understanding of this complex mechanism and identifies a significant new therapeutic target.” Baram said.
“Future studies are needed to increase our understanding of the different and sex-specific effects of early-life adversity on behavior.”
Team members include Annabel K. Short, postdoctoral researcher, Lara Taniguchi, graduate student, Aidan Pham, lab assistant, and co-corresponding author Yuncai Chen, project scientist, from Department of Pediatrics; Gregory B. de Carvalho, graduate student, Benjamin G. Gunn, assistant project scientist; Christy A. Itoga, researcher; Xiangmin Xu, professor; Lulu Y. Chen, assistant professor; from the Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology; and Stephen V. Mahler, associate professor from the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior.
Funding: This work was supported by National Institute of Health grants P50 MH096889, MH73136, U01DA053826 NS108296 P50 DA044118, P50 MH096889 Seed Award FG23670, The Bren Foundation, a George E. Hewitt Foundation for Biomedical Research Fellowship and a British Society for Neuroendocrinology Project Support Grant BSN-5646342. About this stress research news
Author: Patricia Harriman
Source: UC Irvine
Contact: Patricia Harriman – UC Irvine
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Open access.
“ Stress-induced plasticity of a CRH/GABA projection disrupts reward behaviors in mice ” by Tallie Z. Baram et al. Nature Communications
Abstract
Stress-induced plasticity of a CRH/GABA projection disrupts reward behaviors in mice
Disrupted operations of the reward circuit underlie major emotional disorders, including depression, which commonly arise following early life stress / adversity (ELA). However, how ELA enduringly impacts reward circuit functions remains unclear.
We characterize a stress-sensitive projection connecting basolateral amygdala (BLA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc) that co-expresses GABA and the stress-reactive neuropeptide corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH).
We identify a crucial role for this projection in executing disrupted reward behaviors provoked by ELA: chemogenetic and optogenetic stimulation of the projection in control male mice suppresses several reward behaviors, recapitulating deficits resulting from ELA and demonstrating the pathway’s contributions to normal reward behaviors.
In adult ELA mice, inhibiting–but not stimulating–the projection, restores typical reward behaviors yet has little effect in controls, indicating ELA-induced maladaptive plasticity of this reward-circuit component.Thus, we discover a stress-sensitive, reward inhibiting BLA → NAc projection with unique molecular features, which may provide intervention targets for disabling mental illnesses.Join our Newsletter I agree to have my personal information transferred to AWeber for Neuroscience Newsletter ( more information )Sign up to receive our recent neuroscience headlines and summaries sent to your email once a day, totally free.
How does the brain age across the lifespan? New studies offer clues.
Well+Being Do brains peak in childhood? Is it all downhill after 30? Can a 65-year-old brain keep up with an adolescent?
While growth charts tracking metrics like height and weight give a relatively clear picture of the range of human physical development, less has been known about the key milestones of normal brain aging.
To find out more, an international team of researchers collected brain scan data from multiple studies representing 101,457 brains at all stages of life. The youngest scan in the study came from a 16-week-old fetus; the oldest was from a 100-year-old.
Across this large data set, some striking milestones emerged. The thickness of the cerebral cortex, the wrinkled outer layer of the brain, peaks at about age 2 — the region is involved in processes like perception, language and consciousness.
Gray matter volume, which represents the overall number of brain cells, peaks in childhood about age 7.
White matter, made up of the connections between neurons that allow for regions of the brain to quickly communicate, is at its highest volume at about age 30 and begins to decline in later adulthood.
The volume of ventricles, fluid-filled cavities within the brain, increases rapidly at later age — larger ventricle size has been associated with some neurodegenerative diseases.
Importantly, the study is meant to serve as a broad reference rather than an exact road map personalized to individual people, said Jakob Seidlitz, a study co-author and research scientist at the Lifespan Brain Institute of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania.
“Absolute differences in size in these features are somewhat meaningless,” Seidlitz said. “They’re useful insofar as mapping a reference for any given age, given how dynamic these processes are.”
Brain development also gets increasingly variable the older we get. Even different parts of the brain, like regions involved in vision vs. speech, hit their own milestones at different points in life, said Sahar Ahmad, a research instructor at the UNC School of Medicine who specializes in neuroimaging over development. While some of these structural elements have been tied to behaviors — white matter has been associated with more efficient decision-making, for example — there are still more complex genetic, cellular and functional changes underpinning the big, structural shifts.
And, while the brain is largely set up by birth, with the creation of new neurons largely complete, how different parts of the brain communicate with one another change over life.
The good news is, that unlike other parts of the body, our brains are built to change over our lifetime, meeting the challenges set by every life stage. While nobody can predict the exact ages of brain development, here’s a general guide to how the brain may change at various ages.
Babies’ brains are like sponges, soaking up all kinds of environmental information, particularly from their parents or caregivers. In the first year or so, for example, babies can learn any language, but that capacity is quickly narrowed based on the sounds or signs they hear or see. That rapid fine-tuning is why it can be much more difficult to learn new languages later in life, particularly ones that are different from a native language.
Part of this sponginess is due to the huge number of synapses, or the connections between neurons, formed over the first couple years of life.
“Early in life, we have a whole lot of excitatory connections, so there’s a lot of learning potential,” said BJ Casey, professor of neuroscience and psychologist at Barnard College, who studies adolescent brain development.
Important cellular and genetic processes are also underway. While most neurons are born by the time of birth, other types of cells in the brain such as glia are developing and maturing rapidly in the first years of life. Glial cells — which can help form synapses, insulate connections, provide nutrients and destroy pathogens in the brain — will continue to mature for several decades.
Both neurons and glia also accrue mutations throughout life, but the ones “occurring during [early] development seem to be very important at setting up risk for diseases later in life,” said Chris Walsh, professor of pediatrics and neurology at Harvard Medical School, who studies the genetics of brain development.
Starting at about 18 months to two years, the brain shifts toward learning, which involves both strengthening important connections and decreasing ones that aren’t being used. To help the brain prioritize certain experiences, more inhibitory connections, which act as brakes for information processing, develop across brain circuits.
To decrease connections, babies lose about half of those synapses they had just formed in a process known as synaptic pruning. To strengthen connections, myelination, the process by which neuronal connections are wrapped and insulated with the fatty protein, myelin rapidly increases throughout childhood and beyond.
This increased signal-to-noise ratio for information that corresponds with children’s experiences is especially important as they learn to process emotions, interact in social settings and develop more complex communication skills.
Because there is so much connection building and strengthening during childhood, the brain is particularly sensitive to interactions with caregivers and others in their environment. Stress stemming from trauma or neglect in this period can therefore have deeply profound effects on the rest of a child’s brain development over life.
From the ages of about 10 to 19, there are dynamic changes in brain networks involved in learning how to process emotions and motivations around different experiences, as teens navigate life that begins to move away from the safety of home.
“During adolescence, you have to learn to fend for yourself,” as you won’t have the same protection from parents as you did when you were younger, Casey said. “Learning the boundaries of society’s rules is exactly what adolescence is about, preparing you to be a functioning adult.”
This heightened sensitivity to the environment is reflected in another bout of widespread synaptic pruning and myelination, but especially in circuits underlying emotion and reward processing. It’s why teens are incentivized to explore new experiences, no matter how risky or threatening they can be.
The mid-to-late 20s are often thought of as a kind of […]
From LAB to LUNGS: The real COVID timeline in a nutshell
( Natural News ) Dirty “vaccines” have never been dirtier than the ones created for Covid-19. SARS-CoV-2 was created in a laboratory and released to start a pandemic, and this is no conspiracy theory (anymore), and actually never was one. Take a look at the history of this plandemic, and you will see the forest for the trees. From lab to lungs, the scamdemic was planned so that big governments and big pharma could take control of the populace, kill off billions of them, control the rest, and convince everyone that the clot shot vaccines were the saving grace of it all, even though they are the weapons of mass destruction. Here’s where it all began, and how we got to where we are today.
December, 2004 : Liver damage from SARS vaccine documented. Lab animals (ferrets) vaccinated with rMVA-S and then exposed to SARS-CoV suffered liver damage from elevated levels of a specific enzyme, as discovered by researchers in Canada 16 years before the Wuhan virus was released from labs in China. Canadian researchers were developing a vaccine for SARS and started testing it on ferrets in laboratories, as reported in the Journal of Virology , when they found hepatitis in the ferrets and began urging extreme caution for other investigators working on SARS vaccines.
September, 2007: Virus Mania book published long before the SARS Coronavirus scamdemic even began, explaining in depth how the medical industry invents epidemics and pandemics so they can bankroll billions of dollars in profits at patients’ expense. The book is very thorough and fact based, with over 800 footnotes and scientific, evidence-based research to back up all the statements.
September, 2010: Bill Gates announces he can reduce the world’s population by several billion people using new vaccines and abortions.
November, 2015: SARS study by UNC scientists literally warns the world about a bat virus that “could become a source of future human outbreaks .”
January, 2018 : Fauci steers massive funding to Wuhan lab’s “gain of function” coronavirus research so a bat disease can spread to humans (and it works).
December, 2020: FDA fraudulently issues “ Emergency Use Authorization ” (EUA) for dangerous and untested Covid-19 “vaccines” that are not really vaccines at all, but rather DNA-altering gene-mutation injections that spread millions of spike prions throughout the vascular system, cleansing organs, heart and brain.
August, 2021 : Fake president Biden lies and tells America the Fauci Flu jabs are “ safe and effective ” even though they are dangerous and ineffective , as Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials are falsified.
November, 2022 : Dr. Robert Malone, one of the key creators of mRNA technology , blows the whistle on how horrific it can be for human health, and lets the world know that the clot shots can cripple the human immune system AIDS style.
February, 2023 : Whistleblower Sasha Latypova reveals DoD origins of COVID plandemic and mRNA “vaccine” bioweapon. She reveals Big Pharma and the CDC’s immediate censorship of remedies for Covid-19 that really worked, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Doctors got their licenses suspended and they were persecuted for curing people using natural remedies. Fake studies were done to suppress cures and promote deadly mRNA clot shot injections. The US government is at the top of this, running the whole scamdemic apocalypse in America. Bill Gates says the quiet part out loud about depopulating the planet by using abortions, pharmaceuticals and “new vaccines”
Dial it back. The year was 2010, and Bill Gates said the quiet part out loud, at a TED conference , explaining how the world population could be reduced by several billion people if we … “do a really great job on new vaccines , healthcare, and reproductive services…” and by healthcare and reproductive services, he meant abortions, and by vaccines he meant instead of just causing extreme allergies, asthma, and autism, that NEW vaccines literally exterminate people, as the Covid clot shots do now by sending millions of spike proteins into vital organs, while clogging up the vascular system, causing turbo cancer and heart attacks. What else could he have meant, besides maybe more deadly prescription drugs? Let that sink in for a moment.
Bill Gates planned it all: How to depopulate the planet with abortions and “new vaccines” – listen to him speak on planned genocide at TED talks here Bill Gates TED 2010 – vaccination and depopulation [ENG]
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Next, from 2018 to 2019, according to National Institutes of Health (NIH), Fauci navigates massive funding , including grants, for research at bioweapons laboratories ( CCP-based ) as they create a novel virus using “gain of function” where a virus that never hopped from animals to people suddenly can. SARS CoV-2 was created in a laboratory as the Wuhan lab, in cahoots with the Chinese Military, tested whether or not “spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model.” And just like that, a pandemic was born.
Then came the Wuhan Hunan wet market bat-eater conspiracy theory about the origins of coronavirus, saying somebody in China ate an infected bat and now the whole world needs to go on lockdown, get vaccinated, and wear masks eternally to stop the entire world’s population from being wiped off the face of the Earth. That’s right when all the cruise ships from China, full of infected people, started arriving and de-boarding on the west coast of the United States of America. Let the vaccine-induced mass-depopulation “games” begin.
Bookmark Vaccines.news to your favorite independent websites for updates on the Vaccine Holocaust that’s sweeping the nation and the world as you read this.
Sources for this article include:
Pandemic.news
Brighteon.com
NaturalNews.com
FDA.gov
Boosting Your Mood Beyond Meds and Therapy
Antidepressant medication by itself is less effective than medication plus therapy. Therapy is more effective with lifestyle changes.
Getting regular exercise leads to measurable changes in body chemistry, which have an uplifting effect on mood.
Quality sleep allows for stable moods, better focus, and memory, while meditation decreases the tendency to ruminate on discouraging thoughts.
Roughly 20 million adults in the U.S. suffer from depression each year. Those at greatest risk are women, single adults, and those living on low incomes. Among Americans aged 12 and older, the incidence of depression is 9 percent. Among teens and young adults, the rates are even more concerning, reaching 17 percent. Use of Antidepressant Medications
A significant step forward in treating depression came with the release of Prozac in 1988, followed by the release of a group of antidepressants , called SNRIs, in the early 1990s. Medication has been extremely beneficial for those who are so depressed they cannot get out of bed in the morning, function during the day, or get to sleep at night. It’s clearly superior to becoming addicted to another substance, such as sleeping pills or alcohol , to allow relief from intensely low mood and low energy, as well as to minimize the risk of self-harm .
As a society, we have come to rely on psychiatric medications for a whole range of emotional and behavioral problems, with varying consequences from life-saving to life-numbing. As psychiatrist Bessel Van Der Kolk pointed out in The Body Keeps the Score , “even as antidepressant use continues to increase, it has not made a dent in hospital admissions for depression.” Medication alone is not enough to treat depression or prevent relapse after treatment. The Role of Therapy and Its Limit
Most mental health professionals emphasize the importance of therapy and medication (as needed) when treating mental health problems. Various models of therapy, particularly cognitive-behavioral therapies (CBT, DBT, ACT, etc.), are effective in relieving mild and severe symptoms of depression. The combination of medication and therapy has repeatedly been shown to be more effective than medication alone.
If you are opposed to using a psychoactive medication or have had no success with antidepressants, therapy may be your primary course of action. Particularly for those whose symptoms are mild to moderate, therapy is an excellent way to get short-term relief of symptoms.
However, as is true for medication alone, therapy alone cannot produce lasting positive change unless something else changes. If lifestyle habits continue to be self-defeating, such as misuse of substances, ongoing sleep deprivation, or a diet lacking nutrition , no amount of therapy can overcome the detrimental effects of those lifestyle factors. Lifestyle Changes
Your physician has probably advised you to exercise daily, get eight hours of sleep, and eat a healthy, nutritious diet. This common-sense lifestyle advice is based on the wisdom of generations, and there is scientific evidence of the benefits for your emotional and physical well-being. Four possible lifestyle habits have been well-studied for their specific benefits.
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Regular daily exercise : Increases levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, known to be low in depressed persons. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/serotonin-the-natural-mood…
Releases endorphins, the natural feel-good neurotransmitters.
Activates the release of dopamine , the neurotransmitter associated with feeling motivated.
Builds confidence as you meet your exercise goals .
Takes your mind off worries and self-critical thoughts.
Activates the release of the neurotransmitter GABA, which has a natural calming effect after as little as 10 minutes of movement.
Nutritious diet: Foods high in omega-3s act as natural antidepressants by boosting serotonin production in the brain (salmon, sardines, and walnuts are a few examples).
Vitamin D supplements have been associated with improved mood, while low levels of Vitamin D are associated with depressed mood.
B Vitamins (B-1, B-3, B-6, and B-9) help to produce serotonin.
Good quality and optimal quantity of sleep: Deep sleep and REM sleep are critical for memory , focus, awareness, and stable mood. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/mental-health/depression-and-sleep
Regular sleep schedules work with the body’s natural sleep-wake cycles ( circadian rhythms ) to maximize our alertness during daylight and restfulness at night.
Lack of sleep makes us more vulnerable to depression , possibly by disrupting the production of serotonin.
Too little sleep ( insomnia ) and too much sleep (hypersomnia) are signs of possible depression.
Mindfulness Meditation or Transcendental Meditation: Is associated with increased grey matter in the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain that guides us to use self-control (The Body Keeps the Score, Van de Kolk, 2014).
Stimulates the vagus nerve , improving our emotional regulation . Directs brain activity away from the amygdala, the brain’s fear /alarm center (Van De Kolk, 2014). Improves our focus, concentration , and awareness of the present moment. Decreases our tendency to ruminate on worrisome or discouraging thoughts. article continues after advertisement Final Thoughts The impact of lifestyle factors on mental health has been well-established through research. Of course, checking with your physician before adding any exercise program, vitamins, or other dietary supplements to your normal routines is important. In addition to starting new and better habits, there are obviously benefits of giving up or limiting unhealthy habits, such as the use of substances to alter moods.Changing our daily routine is not a simple step; most of us have at least one not-so-healthy habit. I suggest you consider choosing one lifestyle change as a start, following up with a second change when the first has become routine for you. It’s never too soon or too late to improve the quality of your life. To quote T.S. Eliot, “Every moment is a fresh beginning.”
Is Our Brain Really Cut Out for the Modern World?
Do you ever feel like your brain isn’t meant for modern times, like it’s a relic of a bygone era? After all, we’re afraid of snakes and spiders, even though we rarely encounter them in the developed world. We wolf down energy-packed fatty foods like our next meal isn’t a sure thing, even though the bulk of us have access to many more calories than we need. And we’re afraid of the dark in our own homes.
The human brain evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to deal with immediate risks, like hunger and danger, but the vast majority of humans today are neither starving nor in danger of being hunted by a predator or bitten by a poisonous creature. Instead the risks we face — obesity, climate change, pollution, nuclear suicide — are creeping and complex. And they’ve materialized in an evolutionary blink of an eye, leaving our brain’s threat and thinking systems maladapted to deal with them.
“Our brain is hardwired, and the chemistry of the brain guarantees that we feel first and think second,” David Ropeik , an author and expert in risk perception, told Big Think . “That worked pretty well when the risks were lions and tigers and bears and the dark, oh, my. It’s not as good now when we need to rationalize and reason and use the facts more with the complicated risks we face in a modern age.”
Is there anything we can do to overcome this ingrained irrationality?
“If the brain jumps to conclusions out of emotion first, just assume that your first decision might not be the most informed one,” Ropeik said. “Don’t leap to conclusions. Take more time, a half an hour, an hour, a day, two. Think about it… Get more information.”
Dan Ariely , the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and founder of The Center for Advanced Hindsight, suggested another strategy when he sat down with Big Think .
“Think from an outsider’s perspective. When you think about your own life, you’re trapped within your own perspective. You’re trapped within your own emotions and feelings and so on.”
But if you can think about a problem with a dispassionate, unattached viewpoint, you’ll likely reach a more rational decision.
You can also outsource your brain’s thought process to friends, family, or even anonymous internet forums. Simply asking others for advice is a great way to tackle problems more rationally, Ariely said.
Ariely suggests that seeking wisdom from a collective fits well with an idea that Paul Bloom , a Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, espouses: A human may be irrational, but humanity can be quite rational.
“My fellow psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists often argue that we’re prisoners of the emotions, that we’re fundamentally and profoundly irrational, and that reason plays very little role in our everyday lives,” Bloom told Big Think . “I honestly don’t doubt that that’s right in the short-term, but I think in the long run, over time, reason and rationality tends to win out.”
Bloom cites humanity’s steady course toward collective betterment to support his hopeful outlook. Over time, humans have grown more peaceful , less impoverished, longer-lived, and more law-abiding.
“There’s a lot of explanation for these changes, but I think one key component has been exercise of reason, and I’m optimistic we’ll continue this in the future,” Bloom says.
Daniel Dennett , the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, agrees. He predicts that our brains will gradually become better-suited to the modern era.
“It’s quite a robust thinking system that we’ve got between our ears. We’re going to develop more and better-thinking tools, and we’re going to identify more weaknesses in our rationality.”
This story was first published at Big Think.
Top 7 addictions you MUST QUIT to become your greatest self
( Natural News ) Research shows that willpower is actually more important than IQ, which is why the point is not to become “smarter,” but to become more self-disciplined. Will power is the foundation of all human achievements. Everyone has some willpower, but we always feel that we need more, often because we tend to use up what we have. That’s called willpower depletion. The good news is that you can actually train your willpower like a muscle. A famous Italian author once wrote, “I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.”
Mental and physical health are hinged on how a person feels at any given moment. We must remain in control of how we feel at all times, but how? The answer: balance. We all know how to balance our physical body so we don’t fall over when we stand up, or while we ride a bike, or hop across some stones over a flowing stream.
So how do we balance ourselves mentally, and even spiritually, so we don’t “fall over” every time we run into an obstacle, or someone else distracts us, criticizes us, or drains us like an energy vampire? Realize that we are more apt to help others by simply modeling balance and success in our own lives. Don’t drain yourself trying to “fix” everyone else. That brings us to addictions. We all have addictions, which makes most people immediately think of food, alcohol or drugs when they hear that, but there are all kinds of addictions, beyond the physical realm, that must be addressed to overcome feelings of inadequacy, and so we can become our greatest self.
What about failure? Some folks are literally more afraid of success than they are of failure, because success means they will need to “repeat” that success over and over, which they believe might be too difficult, yet once we’re successful at something, it becomes easier and easier to repeat, until it becomes second nature. Don’t fear success, embrace it. Success is every moment you feel positive and balanced. Start controlling this now. Here’s more. Defeating defeatism and avoiding the energy vampires all around us
Simply turning on the news (fake news with commercials) can be instantly depressing. Also, friends, relatives, and coworkers incessantly complaining and whining about their problems to us can drain our energy, focus, and our own desire to accomplish our goals, day in and day out. We don’t want to be selfish, but how can we help others if we can’t help ourselves, and stay balanced and focused?
Step one: Release yourself from worry. We must watch what we think each minute, all day, and pull the “weed” thoughts and throw them away. Just as you keep your physical balance if someone bumps into you, keep your mental balance (positive thoughts) when someone or something negative enters your mental or physical space. You are in complete control of what goes on in your head. Practice keeping balance there. Even force yourself to smile in the face of adversity.
Step two: Stop complaining and waiting for “ideal conditions” to do what you want to do. Train your brain to be positive, which may mean disassembling negative thinking. Ever taken something apart and put it back together, just for the fun of it?
Step three: Change everything you put into your body into healthy inputs, including information, attitude, self-opinion, food, beverages, supplements, superfoods , and clean water. Your body is the temple of your soul, including your mind. It all needs to run on “high octane” fuel, not “dirty oil” or fluoridated water. So, without further adieu, let’s address the top 7 addictions you simply must quit to become your greatest self
#1. Defeatism – dissatisfaction with life and feelings of inadequacy
#2. Quitting – Quit quitting. Instead, be persistent, confident, committed, and strong-willed. Overcome obstacles and circumvent obstacles.
#3. Waiting for “ideal conditions” to start something – people who take action accomplish amazing feats, stop waiting for the perfect situation (end procrastination)
#4. Complaining – over time, your brain gets trained to be negative about everything
#5. Distractions – Social media, fake MSM news, misinformation, and criticism
#6. Comparing – You will always be able to find someone who is doing what you do or want to do “much better” so don’t let it bring you down, focus on self and progress
#7. Consumption addictions – including any of the following: high sugar , high caffeine (think energy drinks), nicotine (smoke or vape more than 40mg. daily), excessive alcohol, junk food, and artificial sweeteners. Ending addiction cravings can end addictions entirely, the natural way
Many people are figuring out they can cut back on or completely QUIT bad daily “rituals” and addictive habits, like consuming too much sugar, nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine, by putting to work for them a new supplement beverage called Krave Kicker , that contains mucuna pruriens extract and vitamin B12 as methylcobalamin. The propriety blend is the ultimate natural boost for dopamine levels, while helping to balance the central nervous system .
It’s good to know there’s a natural remedy for everything under the sun, you just have to know what to look for and where. End addictive bad habits and extinguish those addiction cravings, so you can make this the beginning of your new greatest self.
Special Note: This article was authored by Herbal Remedy Insider, a researcher for Krave Kicker, the manufacturer of a functional beverage that contains a natural, herbal remedy for addiction cravings. This publisher was NOT compensated in any way for carrying this article. It is not a sponsored article, but the author is receiving publicity of this news item in exchange for providing the article at no cost.
Research for this article includes:
NaturalNews.com
KraveKicker.com
Pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih
DrHealthBenefits.com
Pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
KraveKicker.com/blog
Natural ADHD cure FOUND: Teen girls who exercise daily have better attention spans than their peers
( Natural News ) A new study by researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has found that teenage girls who exercise every day have much better attention spans than their peers , potentially acting as a natural cure for teenagers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
ADHD has become a prominent issue in the United States recently as sales for ADHD drugs skyrocketed during the pandemic, causing shortages of Adderall, due to many people, including young people, being diagnosed or potentially misdiagnosed. This study, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports , can potentially provide teenagers with a way to handle their condition without resorting to possibly harmful drugs. (Related: Survey reveals mass mental illness in Gen Z, with 57% of young people now taking medication just to cope .)
The study, which involved 211 females between the ages of 15 and 18, found that adolescent girls have more attention control if they engage in more moderate to vigorous physical activity each day.
“Attention control is an aspect of inhibitory control. We can think of inhibitory control as our ability to control attention when distracted, and our ability to control acting on an impulse,” said UIUC kinesiology and community health professor Dominika Pindus, who led the study. “Studies have found that inhibitory control is related to better academic achievement.”
Pindus noted that previous studies have linked better inhibitory control to “having better finances, having better health and less chances of being convicted of a crime.” Physically active teenage girls more likely to focus on their tasks, ignore distractions
In Pindus’ study, she and the other researchers evaluated the intensity of the study participants’ physical activity over time using a measure they called an “intensity gradient.” This metric offered a broad picture of how much each individual does intense physical activity over the course of the day.
To evaluate each individual’s intensity gradient, the researchers graphed the intensity gradients on a slope to visualize the intensity of the individual’s activity over the course of a day. A shallower slope meant the teenager engaged in a greater amount of moderate-to-vigorous activity over time, while a steeper, downward slope meant the person engaged in less vigorous activity.
After controlling for other factors that could have influenced the intensity gradient, such as body mass index and aerobic fitness, Pindus and her team found that the intensity gradient corresponded with the girls’ ability to maintain their attention on a task during cognitive trials that involved the participants having to actively ignore an onslaught of distracting information. Meanwhile, the girls who did less intense physical activity over the course of a day took far longer and were less accurate on these same tests.
“We know that we are not doing a great job in involving adolescents in physical activity,” said Pindus. “Worldwide, about 80 percent of adolescents are usually physically inactive. Boys tend to be more physically active than girls and to engage in more high-intensity physical activity.”
Pindus added that these discrepancies between teenage boys and girls need to be addressed in future studies.
“It tells us that we may need to focus on intervention strategies that engage girls who are the least physically active in high-intensity physical activity to enhance cognitive functions important for academic achievement,” she said.
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Brain health – Preventing and coping with memory loss
What everyone should know
Everyone gets forgetful once in a while, especially as we get older and with all of life’s stresses, tiredness, certain medication, distractions and illnesses.
Apart from being annoying, that is generally nothing concerning but with the upsurge in the incidence and diagnosis of dementia, it is important to know the difference between normal age-related forgetfulness and the beginnings of cognitive problems i.e. memory loss
The main difference is impact. If “forgetfulness” starts to impact on day-to-day living, then it is significant memory loss and medical attention needs to be sought from a specialist/ geriatrician as soon as possible.
PREVENTING MEMORY LOSS
The good news is, through years of research, scientists and medics have been able to identify several risk factors for developing dementia and several steps for preventing memory loss.
It has been said that what is good for the heart is also good for the brain and everyone knows what to do to promote a healthy heart, such things as stopping smoking, a diet rich in leafy vegetables and oily fish, exercise, controlling blood pressure/ blood sugar/ cholesterol etc.
I will outline a few other measures below that have been proven to be effective in preventing memory loss. Paying attention to these now will reduce your risk of developing Dementia in later life by at least 30 to 50%.
1. CONTROL YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE.
Research has shown that people aged 50 with a systolic BP consistently above 130mmHg have a 45 per cent greater risk of developing dementia in later life.
This is particularly concerning in our geographical location because black Africans have an increased incidence of high renin hypertension
So, what do you do with this information?
– Get regular health checks from age 40 and definitely from 50.
– Monitor your BP regularly with a good electronic sphygmomanometer
– If you have consistently high blood pressure readings, book a consultation with a reputable Consultant Physician or Gerontologist.
– You might need to take medication to control your blood pressure
– You will need to modify your diet to a low-salt one
– You will need to schedule in regular exercise
2. EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN
Stay mentally alert by learning new skills, reading, or solving crossword puzzles. All these are called brain-stimulating activities.
When you learn a new skill, like learning a foreign language or learning to play a musical instrument or new dance steps, the neurons in your brain get stimulated and electrical impulses travel faster across them. This helps to keep the brain cells sharpened and reduces their risk of decline.
Those who already have memory problems also benefit from brain-stimulating activities which is important in preventing rapid further decline to the point where dementia becomes very difficult to manage.
Remember! Where the brain is concerned (like many other things), if you don’t use it, you will lose it!
3. AVOID LONELINESS AND DEPRESSION
Research has shown convincingly that untreated depression in mid-life, i.e. after the age of 40, increases the risk of developing dementia in later life.
Loneliness and social isolation are also believed to be linked with a higher risk of developing dementia.There is a 20% increased risk of developing dementia in later life in people aged between 40 & 55 who have untreated depression.Unfortunately, depression and other mental health illnesses is on the increase! So is loneliness and social isolation. The Covid pandemic made it worse.If you are feeling depressed, the first thing I want you to know is, you are not alone, so SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP!It is untreated depression that increases the risk of developing dementia, so seek specialist treatment!Stay as socially active as you can. Stay in touch with people and try to get outdoors.Older adults should be encouraged to go out to functions, go to church/ mosque/ social events, sign up for ‘Seniors day activities units.’ All these help with preventing and coping with memory loss.4. TREAT HEARING LOSSSounds like a strange one but hearing loss is strongly linked with the risk of developing dementia so, No, it’s not one of those things to be brushed aside!5. EXERCISEOkay, I had to go there! There really is no getting away from it.If you want to preserve your brain function as you grow older, then exercise is KEY.Just one hour’s exercise per week can reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by almost 50%.So, to motivate you to get up, walk for one hour a week… THINK BRAIN!!This is by no means an exhaustive list and there is a lot more to be covered in future articles.
Unlock Your Inner Genius: A Drink To Help Accelerate Learning
Do you ever feel like it’s hard to stay focused and retain new information? Experts have discovered that tuning into brainwave rhythms is a powerful tool to boost learning. Researchers from the University of Cambridge recently discovered that briefly tuning into a person’s individual brainwave cycle before they perform a learning task dramatically boosts the speed at which cognitive skills improve.
One startup, TruBrain , discovered a drink to help do just that. Trubrains drink is used by thousands, including Joe Rogan. One of the neuroscientists that helped develop the drink was even featured on Joe Rogan’s podcast to talk about the science.
Brainwave rhythms and learning: Brainwave rhythms are patterns of electrical activity in the brain that are associated with different states of consciousness. These rhythms are measured in Hertz (Hz), or cycles per second. The most common brain waves are Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma and Theta waves, which correspond to different levels of awareness.
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Imagine if you can follow along a full-time trader and just make the same trades as soon as they are making them. For a limited-time only you can get access to expert trader Chris Capre’s starter traders for only $0.99! When you experience increased alpha activity in your brain, you enter a state of relaxed alertness that is beneficial for learning new information. Increased alpha wave activity has been linked to improved memory recall and comprehension as well as enhanced focus and concentration levels because of its ability to reduce distractions from external stimuli. In addition, stimulating alpha waves has also been found to improve problem-solving skills and creativity while helping reduce stress levels.
Studies on alpha brain waves: Numerous studies have shown the beneficial effects of alpha brain waves on academic performance and learning.
A University of Gothenburg study found that students who were exposed to an alpha wave-inducing audio frequency formulation for 25 minutes per day during two weeks of exam preparation outperformed those who did not receive this extra stimulation. The results showed that the students with the additional alpha wave stimulation had better accuracy and higher scores in three different exams than their counterparts. This study was especially significant because it showed that focusing on alpha waves can lead to better test scores without any changes to the learning process or materials used.
A Michigan State University study found that participants exposed to 25 minutes of alpha wave stimulation each day for a week reported better recall than those who received no stimulation. This suggests that alpha wave stimulation can help improve both short-term memory and long-term retention of information.
Foods and supplements that boost alpha brain waves: Certain foods contain compounds that help increase the production of alpha brain waves naturally. These include omega-3 fatty acids, which can be found in salmon, walnuts, flaxseeds and chia seeds; B vitamins, found in eggs, soybeans, spinach and avocados; magnesium-rich foods such as pumpkin seeds, almonds and dark chocolate; and iron-rich foods like liver or beef. Eating these foods regularly will help keep your body supplied with the nutrients needed for optimal alpha wave production.
The most common supplement for boosting alpha waves is L-theanine — an amino acid found naturally in green tea — which has been shown to reduce stress hormone levels while increasing relaxation and focus without causing drowsiness. Other supplements that may be helpful include omega-3 fatty acids (in the form of fish oil capsules) and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Taking these supplements regularly can help support overall health while providing an extra boost to your alpha wave activity.
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A drink that may help boost your inner genius: Two neuroscientists founded TruBrain to help people increase their alpha brain waves.
The company’s flagship products are its beverages, which are scientifically formulated with natural ingredients designed to enhance cognition and focus while reducing fatigue and stress. Key ingredients include nootropics (cognitive enhancers), all-natural energy boosters, adaptogens (herbal agents that modulate stress response systems), vitamins, minerals and amino acids essential for brain health.
With the combination of these powerful ingredients, TruBrain drinks have been proven to significantly improve concentration and productivity in as little as 30 minutes, making it an ideal choice for students or professionals who need a quick boost during a long work day or studying session.
In addition to its signature drink formula, TruBrain also offers capsules, powders and bars. This allows users greater flexibility in how they take their cognitive enhancers, whether they prefer taking pills or sipping on a special blend of ingredients tailored specifically to their needs. With this extensive selection of products designed with both convenience and effectiveness in mind, it’s easy to see why so many people turn to TruBrain as an invaluable resource when looking for ways to increase their mental performance throughout the day. © 2023 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Conquering exam stress: 6 ways to overcome brain fog and achieve academic success
Board exams are a crucial part of every student ‘s academic journey, but they can also be one of the most stressful and anxiety-inducing experiences. The pressure to perform well, coupled with the fear of failure, can leave students feeling overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. Popularly known as ‘ brain fog ’, this dreaded blank state of mind impacts many students making them feel confused, forgetful and dizzy during exams. Fortunately, there are simple and effective ways to overcome this mental fog and boost your focus and clarity during exams. By adopting some techniques, you can stay calm, centred, and focused during your exams, and increase your chances of achieving the success you deserve. (Also read: Yoga for students: 7 best exercises to tackle exam stress )
Talking to HT Lifestyle, Manan Khurma, Founder and Chairman, Cuemath, shared some useful tips for the student to overcome brain fog and perform their best during board exams.
1. Prioritise between easy and weak concepts: While preparing for the exam, students should categorise their chapters into easy, moderate, and difficult groups to efficiently manage their study time. Similarly, while taking the examination, evaluate the question paper to mark or attempt familiar questions first, subsequently attempting moderate and difficult questions. This strategy will help in remembering key concepts and will maximise chances of covering a large part of the examination with ease.
2. Avoid rote memorization and try to understand the concepts: Students often learn formulas or question solutions before the exam to improve their scores. Hours are spent mugging up concepts and formulas right before the exam. This is not only confusing but can result in brain fog. Try to avoid rote memorization – instead dedicate time to understanding concepts and practise enough questions. Always try to focus on the ‘why’ behind the concepts and confidently apply the same to solve questions during practice and the actual examination.
3. Practise mock papers to improve your performance: Here’s a key to ace your exam – follow LPAR which is Learning, Practice, Assessment and Revision. Solve enough previous year’s question papers to become familiar with the exam pattern, and avoid any surprises, especially for topics like trigonometry, geometry, calculus, statistics and probability. It is important to revisit incorrect and difficult questions and revise concepts if required. In addition, you can create a formula sheet for a quick glance and a revision plan to keep you on track.
4. Exam mindset and time management: The aim is to attempt maximum questions correctly in three hours – how does one do that? I have observed students who time themselves while taking at least 2-3 mock tests, usually perform better on the examination day. Creating examination conditions allows us to understand the required exam mindset to improve efficiency, and manage time to navigate between tough and easier sections.
5. Treat rounding and units with caution: It is a good practice to go back to the question to make sure what you’ve put down matches what was asked. Whether you are calculating time, distance, speed, dollar amount, or anything else, tell the marker so. Keep your units in your calculations – time dedicated to writing “cm ” on every line will be worth the mark you avoid losing when it’s included in your answer.
6. Take breaks to boost and refresh your memory: Take short breaks in between long study hours to walk around, stretch, listen to music or take a nap. I used to play the guitar – I still enjoy the music, it helps me manage stress and lets my creativity take a walk. Also, avoid pulling an all-nighter before the exams as lack of sleep may result in brain fog.
A night before the exam, hit the bed on time – get at least 8 hours of sleep. Finally, on the examination day don’t forget to carry your pencil box, water bottle, and chocolate along with your admit card. Reach the examination centre well on time with a positive mindset to make the most of the 3 hours!
Read more news like this on HindustanTimes.com
Startling News: Common Levels of Traffic Pollution Found To Rapidly Impair Brain Function
fMRI shows decreased functional connectivity in the brain following exposure to traffic pollution. Credit: Air Pollution Exposure Lab A groundbreaking study reveals that even brief exposure to air pollution can have rapid effects on the brain.
The study conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria reveals that exposure to common levels of traffic pollution can impair brain function within hours.
The peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Health found that only two hours of exposure to diesel exhaust leads to a decrease in brain functional connectivity, which is a measure of how different areas of the brain interact and communicate with each other. This study is the first controlled experiment to provide evidence of air pollution altering brain connectivity in humans.
“For many decades, scientists thought the brain may be protected from the harmful effects of air pollution,” said senior study author Dr. Chris Carlsten, professor and head of respiratory medicine and the Canada Research Chair in occupational and environmental lung disease at UBC. “This study, which is the first of its kind in the world, provides fresh evidence supporting a connection between air pollution and cognition.”
For the study, the researchers briefly exposed 25 healthy adults to diesel exhaust and filtered air at different times in a laboratory setting. Brain activity was measured before and after each exposure using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
The researchers analyzed changes in the brain’s default mode network (DMN), a set of inter-connected brain regions that play an important role in memory and internal thought. The fMRI revealed that participants had decreased functional connectivity in widespread regions of the DMN after exposure to diesel exhaust, compared to filtered air.
“We know that altered functional connectivity in the DMN has been associated with reduced cognitive performance and symptoms of depression, so it’s concerning to see traffic pollution interrupting these same networks,” said Dr. Jodie Gawryluk, a psychology professor at the University of Victoria and the study’s first author. “While more research is needed to fully understand the functional impacts of these changes, it’s possible that they may impair people’s thinking or ability to work.” Taking steps to protect yourself
Notably, the changes in the brain were temporary and participants’ connectivity returned to normal after the exposure. Dr. Carlsten speculated that the effects could be long-lasting where exposure is continuous. He said that people should be mindful of the air they’re breathing and take appropriate steps to minimize their exposure to potentially harmful air pollutants like car exhaust.
“People may want to think twice the next time they’re stuck in traffic with the windows rolled down,” said Dr. Carlsten. “It’s important to ensure that your car’s air filter is in good working order, and if you’re walking or biking down a busy street, consider diverting to a less busy route.”
While the current study only looked at the cognitive impacts of traffic-derived pollution, Dr. Carlsten said that other products of combustion are likely a concern.
“Air pollution is now recognized as the largest environmental threat to human health and we are increasingly seeing the impacts across all major organ systems,” says Dr. Carlsten. “I expect we would see similar impacts on the brain from exposure to other air pollutants, like forest fire smoke. With the increasing incidence of neurocognitive disorders, it’s an important consideration for public health officials and policymakers.”
Reference: “Brief diesel exhaust exposure acutely impairs functional brain connectivity in humans: a randomized controlled crossover study” by Jodie R. Gawryluk, Daniela J. Palombo, Jason Curran, Ashleigh Parker and Chris Carlsten, 14 January 2023, Environmental Health .
DOI: 10.1186/s12940-023-00961-4
The study was conducted at UBC’s Air Pollution Exposure Laboratory, located at Vancouver General Hospital, which is equipped with a state-of-the-art exposure booth that can mimic what it is like to breathe a variety of air pollutants. In this study, which was carefully designed and approved for safety, the researchers used freshly-generated exhaust that was diluted and aged to reflect real-world conditions.
Boost your kid’s memory with these BRAIN FOODS
Children in their growing phase requires more nutrients than adults. This is the time (till 18 years of age) when their overall physical as well as mental development takes place. They need to focus in their studies, sports and in learning new skills. Every parent needs to provide their kid with brain foods which will improve their child’s memory, concentration and brain functioning.
Certain food items serve as brain food and should be included in a child’s diet. Read the listicle below:
Green leafy vegetables
Green leafy vegetables like spinach, kale, and lettuce include brain-protecting substances such as folate, flavonoids, carotenoids, and vitamins E and K1 which may improve cognitive functioning of kids.
Oranges
Oranges are a rich source of vitamin C which helps in concentration, memory and quick decision making skills.
Nuts
Nuts and seeds include vitamin E, zinc, folate, iron and protein. They contain vital nutrients such as good cholesterol, protein and fibre. Children like to eat nuts so try to include them in their meals.
Eggs
Try to include egg dishes like omelettes or scrambled eggs with bread for breakfast, poach eggs, egg burji as eggs contain nutrients like choline, vitamin B12, protein, and selenium which are important for brain growth and cognitive functioning.
Seafoods
Fishes like salmon, tuna and sardines are high in vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids, which protect the brain against cognitive decline and memory loss.
Curd
A higher-protein full-fat curd can maintain brain cells in good shape. They also contain polyphenols which can increase mental sharpness by increasing the brain’s blood flow.
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Adding milk to coffee can help fight inflammation, suggests study
( Natural News ) Coffee is one of the most popular beverages around the world. And while some people like drinking it with other ingredients like creamer, sugar or flavored syrups, others prefer drinking black coffee.
But according to a study, drinking coffee with milk can help protect against inflammation .
In a preliminary study of isolated cells, researchers found that the specific combination of coffee and milk may have inflammation-fighting properties.
The study was conducted by scientists from the University of Copenhagen who set out to determine how polyphenols , the compounds commonly found in plant foods like coffee that are known to fight inflammation, bind to milk proteins and boost their anti-inflammatory effects.
The research team caused artificial inflammation in immune cells and then treated those cells with either polyphenols alone or polyphenols that had reacted with proteins in milk. How polyphenols and milk proteins protect against inflammation
Upon examining data from their experiments, the researchers found that the immune cells that received the polyphenols-milk protein combination were twice as effective at fighting inflammation.
This suggests that enjoying your breakfast with a combination of the polyphenols found in coffee and milk proteins may help protect your body against inflammation.
The researchers specifically tested coffee drinks with milk to confirm if the phenomenon occurred.
Professor Marianne N. Lund, one of the lead authors of the study, explained that the results showed that the reaction between polyphenols and proteins also occurred in some of the coffee drinks with milk that they studied. (Related: Study: Cherries can help fight heart disease, diabetes and other inflammatory diseases .)
Lund also thinks that the polyphenol-protein anti-inflammatory benefit can also occur in other food or beverage pairings. She suggested that something similar could happen in a meat dish with vegetables or a smoothie made with some protein like milk or yogurt.
Since this is a preliminary study on isolated cells, the research team plans to continue studying this phenomenon in animals and then humans to learn more about it on a more practical level.
“It is clearly imaginable that this cocktail could also have a beneficial effect on inflammation in humans. We will now investigate further, initially in animals. After that, we hope to receive research funding, which will allow us to study the effect on humans,” concluded Lund. Other ways to boost your intake of polyphenols
While scientists continue to examine the potential health benefits of coffee and milk , here are other polyphenol-rich foods that can help prevent inflammation:
Eat more foods full of polyphenols
According to data, there are over 100 foods that are known to be rich in polyphenols.
Here are some polyphenol-rich superfoods that you can add to your regular diet: Black chokeberry
Black elderberry
Celery seed
Chestnuts
Cloves
Cocoa powder
Dark chocolate
Flaxseed meal
Mexican oregano (dried)
Star anise
Aside from milk, you can add some superfoods from this list to your morning coffee like cocoa powder, dark chocolate or flaxseed. Try using a collagen supplement If you also want to boost your bone and skin health, try adding collagen powder to your coffee.A high-quality collagen supplement that contains proteins and antioxidants can support your immune system along with your bone and skin health. Stick to plain coffee While the study suggests that drinking coffee with milk may help fight against inflammation, that doesn’t mean you should start every day with a sugary iced coffee.Many coffee drinks with different add-ons have more sugar than a can of soda. This is bad for your health, especially if you drink a lot of syrupy sweet iced coffee, because sugar is known to trigger inflammation.Preliminary research suggests that the polyphenols in coffee and the proteins in milk react to help boost your cells’ inflammation-fighting powers. While more research can help scientists understand this impressive health benefit, follow a balanced diet and eat fruits and vegetables full of compounds like polyphenols to protect against inflammation. Other ways to make your coffee healthy Aside from adding milk, here are other ways to make your cup of joe healthy : Choose a quality brand of organic coffee The quality of your coffee will depend on the processing method and how the coffee beans were grown.Coffee beans are often sprayed with synthetic pesticides and other chemicals that are bad for your health. If you are worried about the pesticide content of your coffee, try buying organic coffee beans.Organic coffee beans should contain much lower amounts of synthetic pesticides. Add a bit of cinnamon Cinnamon is a flavorful spice and it also pairs nicely with the flavor of coffee.According to research, cinnamon can help lower blood glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides in people with diabetes. If you need some flavor, but are watching your sugar intake, add a dash of cinnamon to your cup of joe.To lower the risk of potential adverse effects, buy Ceylon cinnamon instead of the more common Cassia cinnamon. Add some cocoa Cocoa is a superfood full of beneficial antioxidants. It is also linked to several health benefits, such as a lower risk of heart disease.The next time you’re making coffee, add a dash of cocoa powder for some added flavor.Many coffee shops serve caffe mocha, a chocolate-flavored version of caffe latte. However, caffè mocha is usually sugar-sweetened, which can be bad for your health if you need to monitor your sugar consumption.Instead, check recipes online and make caffe mocha at home, but skip the added sugar. Don’t add too much sugar Coffee by itself is healthy, but adding too many ingredients like sugar and flavored syrups can turn it into something harmful.Keep in mind that added sugar is probably one of the worst ingredients in the modern diet. Sugar, mainly due to its high amount of fructose, is linked to many health issues such as obesity and diabetes.If you can’t drink black coffee, try a natural sweetener like stevia or add a bit of cinnamon or cocoa to your cup of joe. Avoid low-fat and artificial creamers If you love coffee, but are watching your weight, using ingredients like […]
Enriched diet: Eat the rainbow
Red, green and yellow are not just colours of the rainbow, but nature’s way of adding nutrition to your diet. The diet enriched with these colours is an important source of phytonutrients, which means all the natural compounds found in plant foods such as vegetables, fruit, whole grain products and legumes.
The word ‘phytonutrients’ comes from ‘phyto’, meaning plant. Thus, the importance of eating a variety of fruits and vegetables of various hues has often been advised by experts and professionals. And to ‘eat the rainbow’ can actually benefit health and have potent anti-cancer and anti-heart disease properties.
Consuming colours
Consuming colourful foods gives more nutrition and phytonutrients to the body, says Vijayashree, chief dietician, MGM Healthcare, Chennai.
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“This isn’t just preparing a beautiful plate; each colour signifies different nutrients our body needs. The natural foods we consume are red, orange, yellow, purple, blue, green and brown in colour. Including these colourful foods in the diet can improve vision, decrease inflammation, reduce the risk of chronic diseases including cancer, heart disease and diabetes and also can strengthen our immune system. These health benefits are due to the phytochemicals that occur naturally within these foods,” she says.
In a recently held ASSOCHAM webinar on fibre consumption for good gut health bacteria, health experts suggest how nutrition has a significant impact on all bodily functions and health.
Dr Sudeep Khanna, senior consultant in gastroenterology, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, says, “Foods which are inflammatory should be avoided since they turn good bacteria in the gut into bad bacteria. Instead, fibre-rich diets, which support the development of good bacteria, are good. Changes to lifestyle and eating habits are necessary to lower dietary risks. So, pick a rainbow-coloured diet; the more colours on our plate, the healthier it is. A few strategies to maintain health and fitness include eating on small plates to prevent overeating, eating less and walking around more, and having dinner before 7 pm,” he advises.
Dr Rajesh Kesari, the founder and director of Total Care Control in Delhi-NCR and a member of the Research Society for the Study of Diabetes in India (RSSDI Executive Committee), says a focus on food items that can be beneficial, like green vegetables, fruits, beans, berries, helps avoid avoid diseases like colon cancer.
For a balanced diet
Phytonutrients are plant based compounds or chemicals which are known to have anti mutagenic, i.e, anti-cancer, free radical scavenging, i.e, antioxidant and immunity boosting functions which help promote health and prevent diseases.
According to Ruchika Jain, chief dietitian, Fortis Hospital, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, they are generally coloured pigments imparting vibrant colours to fruits and vegetables.
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“Even WHO recommends eating five portions (400 gm) of fruits and vegetables a day to lower the risk of serious health problems, such as heart disease, stroke and some types of cancer. Eating a rainbow coloured diet that includes varied colours of fruits and veggies will provide a variety of important phytonutrients. A well-balanced healthy plate comprising 50% of fruits and vegetables, the rest being a variety of whole grains, nuts, seeds and legumes,” says Jain.
Jain shares a list of various phytonutrients and a few important ones are: betacarotene, lutein, anthocyanins, lycopenes, isoflavones, indoles, catechins, resveratrol, etc.
For instance, lycopene is found in tomatoes and its products are found to be cardio-protective and anti-cancer, especially prostate cancer.
Lutein is found in leafy greens like spinach, kale, lettuce, broccoli and is found to be good for eye health, anti-cancer and heart health.
Beta carotene found in orange and yellow orange coloured fruits and vegetables like pumpkin, carrots, cantaloupe, apricots, peaches and mangoes are powerful antioxidants and help maintain good vision, immune function, and skin and bone health.
Anthocyanins found in blueberries, black berries, plums, cranberries, purple grapes, strawberries, raspberries are found to be anti-cancer, cardio-protective and helpful in age-related degenerative diseases also.
Resveratrol, found mainly in grapes, red wine and peanuts, is found to be good for heart and lung health and has anti-inflammatory properties too.
Isoflavones found in soybean are found to be especially beneficial for menopause, breast cancer, endometrial cancer bone and joint health.
Curcumin found mainly in turmeric is found to have excellent anti-inflammatory properties and is widely used in medicines; research is still on for its anti-cancer effects.
Natural healing
Nature has created different varieties of foods with beautiful colours but each of these colours occurring naturally in food has excellent potential to heal a disease.
Shikha Gupta, hormonal expert nutritionist, and a health coach, calls this a ‘colour therapy’ or healing with colourful fruits and vegetables.
“Eat as much as colourful food items in your diet from the list of foods given. Keep your diet 50-70% raw. Only the ones, who have bloating or acidity issues, should not start with it immediately. First start with apple cider vinegar 1 tsp before breakfast, lunch and dinner to improve stomach acids and slowly adapt to this lifestyle,” she says.For instance, Gupta shares, the colour green is loaded with chlorophyll, rich in Vitamin A, C, E, K. It also contains minerals like calcium and magnesium. It aids healing, detoxify the body, provides digestive enzymes, restores energy, boosts immunity, reduces risk to cancer. Dark green leafy vegetables, green juice, green soups like spinach soup, green vegetables like tori, bhindi, beans, lauki, avocado, lime, spirulina, olives are good examples. Orange /yellow has carotenoids which is a precursor of vitamin A. It protects skin against sunlight, promotes eye health, improves immunity, reduces risk of heart disease, cancer and promotes healthy joints: orange, pumpkin, carrot, sweet potato, suran, apricot, mango, apricot, banana, kesar, gond, turmeric, tomatoes have carotenoids.Black/ brown foods have phytosterols which are heart-protective, reduce inflammation, boost memory, promote weight-loss, balance hormones. Almonds, walnuts, raisins, til, haleem, herbs, jaggery, coconut sugar and ginger are examples. “Planning daily meals in accordance with a colourful diet shows therapeutic effects on the body and benefits the immune system, vision, liver health, and general circulatory system. Filling your daily […]
Research Determines the Best Types of Workouts to Boost Memory and Brain Function
Research from the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health , involving more than 4,000 people, found a link between moderate- to vigorous-intensity activity and a boost in memory and cognitive processing time. The same didn’t hold true for low-intensity exercise.
Adding just 10 minutes of more vigorous intensity to your rides or other workouts could offer these big brain benefits.
Linking exercise to better brain function isn’t exactly new information—the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that regular physical activity can lead to clearer thinking, better problem-solving, and stronger emotional balance. But research is ongoing when it comes to how much is necessary and, especially, the intensity you should strive to hit to gain the most mind benefits.
Now, a recent study published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health may hold those answers. Researchers tracked data from about 4,500 men and women in their mid-40s in the U.K. who wore activity monitors for up to seven days and at least 10 consecutive hours per day. Participants also took several cognitive tests that assessed verbal memory —like being able to recall words they’d heard or read earlier—and executive function, which includes how quickly they processed information.
Researchers selected a 24-hour movement block and compared it to cognition scores, with a particular emphasis on the effects of intensity level. They found that moderate and vigorous physical activity seemed to be best for working memory and mental processes such as organizing info, but those same effects didn’t hold true for light-intensity activity.
“This was a novel approach to pinpoint whether moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity was critical for cognitive health in midlife,” according to the study’s first author, John Mitchell, Ph.D.(c), researcher in the Primary Care and Population Health department at University College London.
He told Bicycling that because researchers only looked at one point in time, it’s not possible to determine cause and effect—for example, if you ramp up the intensity of your rides, it’s not yet clear how quickly your brain will respond. However, Mitchell added that the results imply even minimal changes in daily activity could have larger consequences for cognition.
In fact, the study points out that swapping out just six minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity activity with other behaviors, like low-intensity exercise or sedentary time, could be detrimental to these cognitive measures.
In terms of how intensity is determined, the researchers used accelerometers around participants’ thighs. But Mitchell emphasized you don’t need a device to figure it out for yourself.
“Moderate to vigorous activity is, broadly considered, any activity that elevates your heart rate and makes you feel warmer, which can range from a longer stair climb to jogging for the bus,” he said.
The CDC’s examples for moderate exercise include brisk walking, while vigorous exercise could be:
The recommendation from the current Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans is 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity each week and two days of muscle-strengthening activity weekly. So you can also aim to target those numbers.
One aspect of research that has yet to be fully discovered in the brain-exercise connection is the mechanism, added Mitchell.
“There’s an overarching mechanism, however, known as cognitive reserve which implicates physical activity as just one of many healthy lifestyle behaviors that may help to build up more complex cognitive pathways through life,” he said. “These may provide some resilience from the natural decline in cognition during the latter half of life. But in general, the physiological mechanisms appear largely elusive.”
What is clear, he added: Move more, increase your intensity at least a few times per week, and you may see a brain boost , including your memory and processing, as a result.
Brain supplements are big business, but there are more proven ways to preserve one’s memory
Brain supplements are gaining popularity as baby boomers hit retirement age and seek to avoid dementia. But there is little evidence that they are better at preventing cognitive decline than eating healthy and exercising. It seems like you cannot watch television these days without seeing a commercial touting an over-the-counter supplement that can improve memory and enhance mental acuity. You’ve seen them – mature boomers testifying to the clarity of thought and improved recall that they experience by taking these brain-boosting products.
The message is persuasive. Is there anybody over 50 who wouldn’t want to maintain their cognitive skills and remember where they put their keys? Yes, the market for what are called nootropics is booming as millions of aging individuals long to stay sharp and fight off cognitive decline.
Now, just for the record, there are several well-known and physician-prescribed drugs under the banner of nootropics – stimulants, like Ritalin and Adderall, and synthetic compounds such as piracetam. My focus is what viewers see in the commercials, and what they’ll be drawn to – flashy off-the-shelf enhancements portrayed as wonder drugs.
Sales growth projections document the increasing demand for these supplements. This comes despite questions about their effectiveness and scientific evidence that shows prescription drugs to be more effective at enhancing executive function. While popping a healthy-sounding supplement fits right in with today’s cultural norms, are nootropics the best way to keep your brain healthy?
Science offers alternatives that come highly recommended by experts. These options are rooted in holistic, healthy behaviors that can benefit both your mind and body. Though the prospect of taking a pill everyday may sound more appealing than a trip to the gym or a plate of fruits and vegetables, the rewards offered by this alternative are worth considering. Let’s take a look. Projected growth
A review of the research on nootropics shows variation in the estimates of global market size, but consistency when it comes to growth projections.
Verified Market Research shows the global market for nootropics was at $2.42 billion in 2020 and projects the market will hit $6.29 billion by 2028, almost a 13% growth rate.
According to Grand View Research , nootropics had a global market value of almost $11 billion in 2021. The firm projects annual growth just over 15% through 2028, increasing the market value to almost $30 billion.
Million Insights market research database forecasts that the global nootropics market size will reach $4.94 billion by 2025, reflecting annual growth of 12.5% through the period of 2019 to 2025.
And market research from Technavio anticipates growth of 12.42% for nootropics through 2026, with 46% of this growth occurring in North America, and largely driven by the US. Questions about nootropics
Though demand is surging for memory-improving products, there are serious questions from legitimate sources as to whether these brain boosters work.
A study published in the journal Neurology Clinical Practive shows that over-the-counter cognitive enhancement supplements may contain multiple drugs unapproved drugs for use in the U.S. The study concludes with a cautionary note: the health effects of ingesting untested combinations and dosages of these drugs absent clinical engagement are unknown.
“There is little hard evidence that these products are either safe or effective for consumers to use,” adds Chuck Bell, programs director for Consumer Reports advocacy division.
And Harvard Medical School , pointing to a survey that about 25% of people over 50 use supplements to improve their brain health, reports that there is no proof that any of them work. The alternative: healthy living
If you’re willing to consider an alternative, there is one that, by all counts, comes highly endorsed by the medical community. It’s quite simple: live healthy. Here is what the experts say.
The Cleveland Clinic promotes exercise for brain health, highlighting aerobic exercises like running, biking, swimming and dancing as ways to increase your heart rate and keep your brain in top shape. The health system recommends 15 minutes of vigorous physical activity three days per week or 30 minutes of moderately intensive activity five days a week.
The physicians at the Cleveland Clinic characterize physical and aerobic activity as “very beneficial even in people who are at risk for developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.” They also point to studies showing the enhanced benefits of combining exercise with a heart-healthy diet.
The Mayo Clinic also endorses diet and exercise to slow any decline in memory and lower the risk of dementia. It adds sleep, mental activity and social engagement as additional strategies, too. Their advice is to treat your brain as a muscle and keep it in shape with challenging activities, like crossword puzzles and cards games.
The Mayo Clinic cautions that watching television does little to stimulate your brain. Socialization is a terrific way to stave off depression and stress, which can contribute to memory loss. The more you engage with others the better the health of your brain.
I previously wrote about how my late father was socially active into his early 90s. His love for socializing and debating the stories of the day kept him mentally sharp right up to the time of his death. It was a real-life lesson for me in the value of human interaction and proof that the science is spot-on when it comes to the power of social interaction. Your choice
Growing interest in memory supplements is a logical outcome of the swell of baby boomers. It reflects our natural gravitation to the path of least resistance and ease of adoption. Taking a pill will always be more attractive than the discipline and commitment required to live healthy.
However, as the science shows, the results are proportionate to the investment. As a commercial from years ago stated: a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Boomers, take heed. We get what we give and if we do not give our brains the workout they need, we will be even more vulnerable to the aging process.
Ignore the commercials, grab your sneakers – not the supplements. It is the best thing you will ever remember doing.
Louis Bezich, senior vice […]
8 Science-backed health benefits of eating kiwi
( Natural News ) Hiding behind the soft, fuzzy brown peel of kiwi, a small exotic fruit associated with New Zealand, is a wealth of essential nutrients, antioxidants and powerful plant compounds. Here are some of the impressive science-based health benefits of kiwifruit, a sweet, easy-to-eat and highly nutritious superfruit also known as Chinese gooseberry. Supports immune health
A study published in the journal Advances in Food and Nutrition Research indicated that kiwifruit contains vitamins C and E, folate, carotenoids, polyphenols and dietary fiber that provide immuno-nutrition by modulating your immune responses in a positive way and mitigating symptoms of infection .
Another study published in the same journal indicated that the kiwi fruit is one of the premier dietary sources of vitamin C, and one serving (3.5 ounces or 100 grams) delivers the bulk (over 80 percent) of the recommended dietary intake . Supports respiratory health
In a study published in The British Journal of Nutrition , researchers reported significantly reduced severity and duration of head congestion and the duration of sore throat, among other symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections , in community-dwelling participants (? 65 years) who consumed the equivalent of four kiwifruits daily for four weeks. They also reported that gold kiwifruit significantly increased plasma vitamin C, alpha-tocopherol, lutein, zeaxanthin and erythrocyte folate (red blood cells) concentrations and decreased oxidative stress. Supports cardiovascular health
Kiwis are rich in vitamin K: Just one cup of raw kiwi has 72.5 micrograms of this vitamin that helps keep your arteries healthy . They also contain high amounts of potassium, an essential mineral for blood pressure control. It also contains pectin, a type of fiber that helps reduce bad cholesterol levels. Complementing this are two amino acids that help prevent the oxidation of good cholesterol arginine and glutamate. Arginine, a well-known vasodilator, helps promote an increase in arteriolar dilation. (Related: Reduce your heart disease risk with kiwi: Research .)
Another study published in the journal Advances in Food and Nutrition Research reported that consumption of two or three kiwifruits per day for 28 days or more lowered platelet hyperactivity, plasma lipids and blood pressure in human volunteers – suggesting that kiwifruit is a new dietary means to favorably modify risk factors of cardiovascular disease . Supports bone health
A study published in the journal Nutrition reports there is a consistent line of evidence in human epidemiologic and intervention studies that clearly demonstrates vitamin K can improve bone health. The vitamin K in kiwis not only increases bone mineral density in osteoporotic people, but also reduces fracture rates. Supports metabolic health
A study published in the Dove Medical Press journal Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy indicated that kiwifruit’s phenolic components and flavonoid isoquercitrin and quercetin may play a role in lowering blood glucose . Isoquercitrin exhibited a potency similar to that of 1-deoxynojirimycin, an alpha-glucosidase inhibitor. Quercetin demonstrated a positive effect on diabetes by reducing oxidative stress and maintaining pancreatic beta-cell integrity. Supports eye health
Kiwis contain high amounts of two types of carotenoids (lutein and zeaxanthin), which perform the same function as antioxidants. These carotenoids help to form vitamin A, which is not only beneficial to a healthy functioning ocular surface, but is also required for the formation of the photoreceptor rhodopsin – which is especially helpful in allowing your eyes to see at night.
Dr. Sherri Nordstrom Stastny and Dr. Julie Garden-Robinson of North Dakota State University said one cup of kiwi contains 200 micrograms of these two phytochemicals, which can help rebuild your macula as you age and prevent macular degeneration and ultimately vision loss.
Additionally, a cup of sliced kiwi contains 167 milligrams of vitamin C, twice the amount an orange provides, which help repair damaged cells and promote the growth of new cells.
A cup of kiwi also provides about 20 percent of your recommended daily intake for the trace mineral copper, which is important for maintaining an optimal nervous system, thus improving the function of your retina , which contains the nerves that convert images into electrical impulses for your brain to interpret. Supports healthy digestion
A study published in the European Journal of Nutrition indicated that the unique combination of soluble and insoluble fibers, polyphenols and actinidin provides gastrointestinal benefits , improves laxation and reduces abdominal discomforts, both in individuals with either constipation-predominant irritable bowel syndrome and in normal health people suffering from constipation without reported side effects. Supports reasonable weight management goals
Kiwis are low in calories but rich in dietary fiber, beneficial fats and natural sugars. They are great super fruits to snack on pre- and post-workouts. Diets that are high in fiber from fruits and vegetables have been shown to promote weight loss , increase fullness and improve gut health, including another study published in the journal Nutrients .
Kiwis are delicious when eaten raw, peeled or unpeeled, and pair well with other fruits in fruit salads or smoothies. You can also add kiwis to your salsa or breakfast oatmeal for extra nutrient benefits.
Learn more about other superfruits and how they promote overall health at Fruits.news .
Watch this video to learn about eight surprising health benefits of eating kiwi . No compatible source was found for this media. More related stories:
Cloudflare: Blocking kiwi farms and others caused loss of potential customers, ‘significant adverse feedback.’
Sources include:
ScienceDirect.com 1
ScienceDirect.com 2
Cambridge.org
ScienceDirect.com 3
ScienceDirect.com 4
TandFonline.com –
SFGate.com MDPI.com
Covid jab spike proteins get “delivered” to ALL bodily organs, resulting in hyper-accelerated aging
( Natural News ) The phenomenon of “sudden deaths” being seen all around the world following the release of covid “vaccines” can be traced back to one common cause: the age-accelerating effects of spike proteins .
Spike proteins lodge inside every organ of the body, we now know, and once there they transform a person from young to old or from old to very old. This is why young people everywhere, including in-shape athletes, are dropping dead suddenly of cardiac events.
Walter M. Chesnut of WMC Research calls this phenomenon Spike Protein Endothelial Disease, or SPED, which he describes as Stage One of a disease he calls Spike Protein Progeria Syndrome (SPPS).
SPPS, Chesnut explains, is an endothelial reaction to the invasion of spike proteins into all major organs of the body. (Related: Check out this amazing component found in broccoli that could help the brain repair spike protein damage.)
“Consider this much like the shock of being submerged in freezing water, or being blasted with fire,” he writes. “There is INSTANTANEOUS damage: inflammation, coagulation and all that accompanies an insult to the Endothelium.”
“However, once the Spike Protein has INVADED the Endothelium of all the major organs, it then PROCEEDS TO INDUCE MISTRANSLATION OF mRNA IN EACH ORGAN.” Covid jab spike proteins function as an AGING drug, accelerating the death process
This is followed by Stage Two of SPPS, or the premature aging of all organs inside the body due to induced mistranslations of the proteins that are essential for proper organ functionality. Mice models show that critters exposed to this spike protein onslaught accumulated these deadly poisons inside their organs, resulting in rapid aging in various ways, i.e., “reduced weight, chest deformation, hunchback posture, poor fur condition, and urinary syndrome, together with lymphopenia, increased levels of reactive oxygen species–inflicted damage, accelerated age-related changes in DNA methylation, and telomere attrition.”
The average lifespan of a spike protein-infected creature is far lower than that of a clean creature whose body was not invaded by these injection poisons. The former develops chronic health conditions that substantially increase the risk of early mortality.
The aging comorbidities seen in the spike protein-infected mice, including frailty, kyphosis, cataract, and sky dystrophia, can be traced back to improper protein synthesis and mRNA-induced mistranslations by the ribosome.
“The Wizard is indeed behind the curtain,” Chesnut writes. “We are seeing a 26-year-old die. But that 26-year-old has the organs of a 96-year-old. No surprise in rapid cancers, neurodegeneration or sudden cardiac death – for a 96-year-old.”
“I believe the Spike Protein is acting as a Progeria Drug – delivered via the Endothelium to all organs.”
Chesnut says he is “deeply saddened” and “numb” about these discoveries. They confirm what many others have suspected about covid jab spike proteins entering all sorts of bodily tissue and wreaking havoc on its functionality.
“This further confirms all of our ‘conspiracy theories,’” one commenter wrote about the findings. “I’m giving methylene blue a shot. We’ll know it works by whether ‘they’ start restricting its use … kinda’ like they did with hydroxychloroquine and IVM (ivermectin).”
“Other recommendations I have seen (and take) are Nattokinase (mentioned by Dr. McCullough and being tested by the Japanese), NAC, Bromelain and Black Seed Oil (leaves an unpleasant after taste),” suggested another about other potential remedies for spike protein poisoning.
“After I started taking these, I got slightly painful lymph nodes in my throat. I speculate that it was breaking up the spike proteins and they were getting filtered through the lymph nodes. It went away after a week.”
The latest news about covid injections can be found at Genocide.news .
Sources for this article include:
WMCresearch.substack.com
NaturalNews.com
Your Primitive Brain Doesn’t Want You to Break Bad Habits. Science Can Help
Most people associate bad habits with the kind of activities that wind up on a list of New Year’s resolutions—eating and drinking too much, spending too much time on the smartphone and avoiding the gym.
But bad habits are often behind more than just personal peccadilloes. The neural machinery of habit formation is also the root cause of many of the worst collective behaviors: Texting while driving, gossiping about co-workers, littering, mansplaining, farting silently in public, making racist or unfair assumptions about strangers and even spreading the kind of misinformation online that some experts warn is threatening to undermine our democracy.
Many people who are aware of bad habits and recognize them to be potentially harmful blame themselves for being weak and lacking the willpower needed to resist them. But in recent years, scientists have used advanced imaging technologies to peer inside the brain as habits are being formed and they’ve mapped habit-formation to precise structures in the brain—structures formed so long ago in the smithy of evolution that humans share them with other mammals. Getty Research suggests that habits, which operate below conscious awareness, usually cannot be tamed simply by resolving to resist them. By the time you realize you’re munching on that bag of potato chips, picking your nose, fighting with someone on Facebook or veering into oncoming traffic while texting, it’s too late.
If we want to change our habits, research suggests, we need to understand how they work, anticipate the cues that trigger them and find ways to break our habit cycle before it starts. Taming a bad habit requires a lot of planning: we need to reverse engineer the chain of behavior that precedes them, and then either remove the cues that set us off altogether, or take the time to build new habits that will replace them. It involves acknowledging that much of what we do is habitual and not the result of our own decision-making, and setting goals in a way that drives new behavior patterns.
Still, it’s not easy to break a habit—nature has made sure of it. That’s because habits are an essential tool of survival—without them, the simple tasks of everyday life would overwhelm us. Americans spend an average of 43 percent of each day engaged in tasks that are largely unconscious—that have become so automatic that we’re able to think and talk about other things while we’re doing them, according to research by Wendy Wood, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California.
“Habits are a unique kind of a learning system—they’re unconscious—so we don’t have access to them in the way that we have access to other decisions,” Wood says. “And I think that’s been overlooked in the popular press and that gets people into trouble.” Americans spend 43 percent of each day engaged in tasks that have become so automatic that we’re able to think and talk about other things while we’re doing them, says psychologist Wendy Wood. Understanding habits and learning how to gain some control over them creates possibilities for making the world a better place. We could all be healthier, happier and less distracted. To hear Wood tell it, it might even improve the state of our democracy. Habit Hackers
One demonstration of how the neural machinery of habit formation can work against us, and how difficult it is to control, is the phenomenon of New Year’s resolutions. Last year, an estimated 40 percent of Americans resolved to change bad habits starting on January 1. By the end of the month, roughly one-third had already given up, and fourth fifths will eventually fail, says Katy Milkman, a professor at the Wharton School and author of the book How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.
What’s more, technology has become a potent tool of exploitation in our consumer culture. Social media companies, Wood argues, have been so successful at hacking the primitive, unconscious parts of our brains involved in habit formation that much of the world’s population is now habituated to checking in with Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram and their smartphones—multiple times a day.
“Social media sites are set up to form habits and they do it so effectively that people are responding to cues on social media often without thinking,” says Wood, author of the book Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick. “They aren’t thinking about the consequences of what they’re doing. They’re not thinking at all.”
One of those consequences is the rapid spread of falsehoods through social media networks. Misinformation has been attributed to growing partisan bias, tribalism, polarization and other factors. But the true mechanism, says Wood, may in fact be habit: the mindless sharing of sensationalistic fake news automatically, often without considering the impact of what we are doing.
That’s the premise of Wood’s new research. She and her colleagues found that habits are highly predictive of whether a user of social media will post misinformation—more so than whether or not the poster agrees with it or even believes it to be true. They published the work in January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Malte Mueller/Getty In four studies, Wood and her colleagues presented a series of 16 news headlines, some of which were false, to thousands of volunteers, and offered them the opportunity to share the headlines on social media. The authors then assessed partisanship, critical thinking and the strength of social media sharing habits by analyzing past sharing on Facebook, and whether their sharing behavior seemed consistent with “automaticity.” On Facebook the act of sharing information is reinforced and becomes habitual because users get recognition from others for doing so. Once this “reward-based learning system” has formed a habit, the authors concluded, “information sharing is “automatically activated by cues on the platform, without users considering critical response outcomes.”
Misinformation is one symptom of a far larger problem. Intentionally or not, smartphones seem to be optimized for habit formation, offering a cue in the form of […]
Brain ‘zips and unzips’ information to perform skilled tasks
Peer-Reviewed Publication
University of Birmingham
The human brain prepares skilled movements such as playing the piano, competing in athletics, or dancing by ‘zipping and unzipping’ information about the timing and order of movements ahead of the action being performed, a new study reveals.
Experts discovered that the order and timing of movements in complex sequences are separated by the brain, before being zipped and transferred into specific movement commands, or ‘muscle memory’, as the person begins the action.
They found that high-level sequencing of movement (such as order and timing) can be stored across several motor areas of the brain, often across several days of training and memorising action sequences, before being activated following a particular trigger such as a musical cue or a starting gun.
Publishing their findings today (6 Feb) in Journal of Neuroscience , researchers from the University of Birmingham and Bangor University believe the discovery may help to improve motor rehabilitation for stroke victims.
Principal investigator Dr Katja Kornysheva, from the Centre for Human Brain Health at the University of Birmingham, commented: “From handwriting to playing a musical instrument, performing sequences of movements from memory is a hallmark of skilled human behaviour.
“What is surprising is that the brain separates these skills into their constituent features rather than encoding them as an integrated muscle memory, even after extensive training. There is a shift in information states within the brain when performing such tasks.
“Information is retrieved from memory unzipped when we prepare it for execution, before being zipped together to start the task. Perhaps this unzipping mechanism helps us to stay flexible for adjustments, even in the final hundreds of milliseconds before we start the movement, e.g. if we need to change the speed or timing of an upcoming action.”
A series of almost 1000 trials saw right-handed participants – excluding professional musicians – learn and memorise four keyboard sequences which they prepared and subsequently produced after a visual cue. After training, participants produced the keyboard sequences in an MRI scanner which measured activity patterns across the brain during the task. The go cue didn’t appear on some trials which allowed the researchers to separate preparation from the movement itself.
First author Rhys Yewbrey, from Bangor University, commented: “We also found several brain regions which control timing during movement production, but none seemed to control order without integrating it with timing.
“There was a matching effect in our participants’ behaviour – they were faster in acquiring a sequence with a new order of finger presses when they were familiar with the timing yet struggled to learn a sequence when they had to pair a previously trained order with a new timing. Perhaps timing control staying active during production allows for flexibility even after the movement has started.”
Researchers believe that the brain separates sequence order and timing as ‘what’ elements representing higher-level control, which are combined to define ‘how’ exactly the task should be performed.
These new results help us to better understand how skilled actions are stored and controlled in the brain for everyday skills such as typing, tying shoelaces and playing a musical instrument, and what makes them flexible and resilient to changes in the environment or in neurological disorders.
ENDS
For more information, please contact Tony Moran, International Communications Manager, University of Birmingham on +44 (0)782 783 2312 or t.moran@bham.ac.uk For out-of-hours enquiries, please call +44 (0) 121 414 2772.
Note for Editors The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions, its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers and teachers and more than 8,000 international students from over 150 countries.
‘Cortical patterns shift from sequence feature separation during planning to integration during motor execution’ – Rhys Yewbrey, Myrto Mantziara, and Katja Kornysheva is published by Journal of Neuroscience.
Cortical patterns shift from sequence feature separation during planning to integration during motor execution
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
The Power Within by Corey Daniels book available for only $2.99
Mind has both conscious and subconscious halves. These are likened to a driver and the truck he drives. The driver plans the destination and observes road conditions, while the truck provides motive power. Your subconscious mind is like the truck and it only goes in the direction in which is a steered. This can be the road or off a cliff. Likewise, the consciousness paints a picture of what the world is and what your goals are and the subconscious acts on them through emotion, physical response and energy, whether these are correct, rational images or false negative ones. The subconscious is also like an emotional reservoir which your body and mind draw responses from to external stimuli.
The Power Within lays out a method of programming your subconscious and tapping into the Holy Spirit, God voice or what the Greeks called the daimon (godman).