18 Tricks to Teach Your Body
June 18, 2023
by Kate Dailey
1. If your throat tickles, scratch your ear!
When you were 9, playing your armpit was a cool trick. Now, as an adult, you can still appreciate a good body-based feat, but you’re more discriminating. Take that tickle in your throat; it’s not worth gagging over. Here’s a better way to scratch your itch: “When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that can cause a muscle spasm,” says Scott Schaffer, M.D., president of an ear, nose, and throat specialty center in Gibbsboro, New Jersey. “This spasm relieves the tickle.”
2. Experience supersonic hearing!
If you’re stuck chatting up a mumbler at a cocktail party, lean in with your right ear. It’s better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech, according to researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. If, on the other hand, you’re trying to identify that song playing softly in the elevator, turn your left ear toward the sound. The left ear is better at picking up music tones.
3. Overcome your most primal urge!
Need to pee? No bathroom nearby? Fantasize about Jessica Simpson. Thinking about sex preoccupies your brain, so you won’t feel as much discomfort, says Larry Lipshultz, M.D., chief of male reproductive medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. For best results, try Simpson’s “These Boots Are Made for Walking” video.
4. Feel no pain!
German researchers have discovered that coughing during an injection can lessen the pain of the needle stick. According to Taras Usichenko, author of a study on the phenomenon, the trick causes a sudden, temporary rise in pressure in the chest and spinal canal, inhibiting the pain-conducting structures of the spinal cord.
5. Clear your stuffed nose!
Forget Sudafed. An easier, quicker, and cheaper way to relieve sinus pressure is by alternately thrusting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then pressing between your eyebrows with one finger. This causes the vomer bone, which runs through the nasal passages to the mouth, to rock back and forth, says Lisa DeStefano, D.O., an assistant professor at the Michigan State University college of osteopathic medicine. The motion loosens congestion; after 20 seconds, you’ll feel your sinuses start to drain.
Read more
The Key To Optimal Health
June 11, 2023
During the past 20 years, we have heard a lot about controlling disease through diet, exercise and food supplements, but not much is being said as to how to prevent disease before it occurs. We are all are born with both inherent strengths and weaknesses as part of our genetic inheritance. All of the tissues in our bodies, whether of bone, muscle, gland or organ, have a unique balance of chemical elements that are designed to work in harmony with one another. It is now believed, that all chronic diseases are accompanied by nutritional deficiencies and imbalances in the essential chemical elements that make up the body.
Many of us think of nutritional deficiencies in terms of an inadequate diet. This is often the case. According to Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D., the leading nutritional problem in the US today is that many of us eat too many “empty calorie foods”. It is not that we do not eat enough food, but instead, we don’t eat enough of the right kinds of foods. It is now felt that it is the consumption of a majority of inappropriate foods that lead to nutritional deficiencies in the body.
There are, however, other ways in which the body exhausts its valuable supply of chemical elements. Excessive mental work, for example, can deplete the brain, nerves and glands. Stress can wreak havoc on our immune system. Toxins can to build up in our bodies, leading to chemical depletion. We can simply neglect our bodies or forget to get enough fresh air, sunshine and exercise. Any abuse or overwork to our bodies, in addition to any inherent weakness we may have, can leave us with nutritional deficiencies.
Read more
Self Improvement Sabotage: Too Tipsy to Tango
April 26, 2023
by Aaron Potts
What good is self improvement and personal development if you turn around and sabotage your own efforts by celebrating prematurely? We’ve all done this in some fashion or other, regardless of what our original goal was.
In the case of weight loss, we’ve all worked really hard at exercising and eating right for a month, lost 5 or 10 pounds, and then went WAY overboard on the reward process. After eating in such a healthy manner and forcing ourselves to workout for 30 days, we show some serious progress, and decide that we deserve a few days off.
Friday night starts with a nice dinner and some drinks, which eventually turns into several drinks plus dessert, and Saturday morning finds us feeling dehydrated, hung over, and nutrient deficient.
By the time Sunday rolls around, we aren’t feeling the effects of Friday night’s drink fest anymore, but we did eat very poorly on Saturday as a result of feeling too under the weather to really care, and we certainly didn’t exercise. We make a token effort at eating in a healthy manner on Sunday, but are only marginally successful, and as we are getting ready for another busy week, we can’t seem to find the time to exercise.
Read more
Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success Still Standing
April 4, 2023
At the age of 96, living in Encino, California and making 20 to 30 speeches a year, former UCLA coach John Wooden still keeps in touch with more players than he could name in one breath, including Bill Walton, Andy Hill, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Keith Erickson, Keith Wilkes, Mike Warren, Kenny Washington and John Vallely. And those are just the ones he has breakfast with on a regular basis. But that only seems natural for a leader whose “Pyramid of Success” includes friendship, loyalty and team spirit as three of its 15 blocks.
Wooden has been called the greatest college coach in history thanks to a long list of accomplishments, including a record 10 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship titles. But for him, it’s not about the number of wins and losses: It’s about how the game is played.
In fact, his players say they don’t recall their coach ever stressing the importance of winning a game. For Wooden, it was about sticking to the fundamentals. “On the first day of practice, I remember him saying, ‘I’m not going to be talking to you about winning or losing because I think that’s a byproduct of our preparation. I would much rather be focused on the process of becoming the best team we’re capable of becoming,’” says John Vallely, who played under Wooden on the 1969 and 1970 UCLA national championship basketball teams.
- Andy Hill on how Coach Wooden helped him become a good leader
- Coach Wooden on how he created his definition of success
- Coach Wooden on what he’s most proud of
- John Vallely on how the Pyramid of Success applies to all aspects of life
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the importance of preparation and the fundamentals
- Bill Walton on what Coach Wooden has taught him about basketball and life
Building the Pyramid of Success
Wooden’s famous philosophy on coaching and life has become ingrained in the minds of his former players and continues to guide many of their lives today. But Wooden didn’t create the pyramid with basketball in mind; he worked on it over a 14-year-period, aiming to create a new definition of success. While teaching high school English, he saw parents criticizing their children for receiving less than an “A” or “B.” That’s when he knew he needed to find a way to pass on his message that success isn’t just about how much stuff you have or how powerful you’ve become; it’s about finding peace of mind.
After completing the pyramid in 1948 while coaching at Indiana State University, Wooden coined his definition of success as, “Peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.” Wooden says that even though he had new ideas about the pyramid throughout its building years, the cornerstones-industriousness and enthusiasm-have always remained constant.
