Happy "Early" Christmas!

>Merry Christmas everyone!

This wonderful event is already knocking at our doors. And I know everyone is very excited to let it in. Christmas is all about giving, right? Now, for all of you kind-hearted people out there, all I want for Christmas is this:

Thank You whoever you are that is going to help me get my long-time Christmas gift. Well, of course, all of us should not forget the real essence of Christmas, which is:

Yes. We should not forget that Christmas that has been celebrated every 25th of December every year is for the birth of our Saviour. Let us always be thankful to the one who has and is still guiding us all - Jesus Christ. Be good everyone for it is Christmas. Don't forget to share every single bit of your blessing to the people around you. Continue to be a blessing to the ones around you. Merry Christmas and have a good one!

Pity

Yesterday, I went to a store to buy something. The store was near our house and can be reached just by walking. So, I went there wearing a sleeveless shirt and plain old pants. By the time I reached there, an old lady thought of me as a worker of that store. She was not an ordinary old lady, she was skinny, wore tattered clothes, hair undone and was carrying a large black plastic cellophane. Inside it were things which we, average people, consider as trash, and for her, treasures. Around her belly, she tied an old open can where she puts her money.

That lady said, "pula lang ug itom palihug"[Translation: Red and black ones only please]. I did not knew what she meant and after all, I was not working there, so I just gave her a quick smile and went back to my business.

A real worker arrived. The woman wanted to buy a yarn with colours red and black. Still, I didn't mind them. I paid for the item I had bought and went out the store.

At the same time, the old lady took her can and turned it upside-down and all her coins dropped to the ground. She was counting and counting to pay for the yarns she bought. This was the time I felt so much pity for the old lady. I walked away from the store thinking how unfortunate that woman is for having that life. I inserted my hand inside my pocket and reached for money. Gradually, I stopped, thinking that I should go back and sacrifice this little amount of money for that poor old lady. And so, I went back and asked the employee waiting for the lady's payment,"Pila diay ang iyang bayrunon kuya?"[Translation: How much should she pay?]. The lady answered me, "pun.e ug singko dong palihog beh"[Translation: add 5 pesos please]. This time, I really felt that she was worried. She was short in money. I felt, so much pity for her. Her eyes were sad, with tears, that almost fell because of worry. I immediately handed her a 20-peso bill. "Salmat kaayu. God Bless Dong, Merry Christmas ug Happy New Year"[Thank You. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. God Bless]. She was happy, and I was too. I felt her relieved. I felt her happiness. We both smiled.

I immediately walked away hiding my smile.

Disasters and Realizations

Last month, disaster visited our city. A fire broke out and burnt two entire village. It was said that the fire started within a house that has a lighted candle. The candle fell out of balance and the flame spread quickly. Many families had lost their home because of the unfortunate incident.

The fire incident was really a few blocks away from our house. Since the fire started during 2:00am, fire men were not able to help immediately. It may be because they were having a good night sleep while the fire was spreading. Houses on the village were built side by side and mostly made from wood which made the flame spread faster. As seconds, minutes pass, the fire was gradually coming towards us. I watched the fire from our roof top. It was a very good view there.

I really pity those who had their house burnt. They were having a good night sleep and woke up just to know that a fire was coming their way. Luckily, firemen came and were able to control the fire few hours pass when the fire broke out.

Good thing though, they do know how to recover things up. They built again their houses and had their home back.

It's really amazing how a simple lighted candle can make two entire village turn to dust. Lesson? Do not ever leave a candle or anything that could start a flame, unattended.

Supplements for a Sharper Mind

Everybody wants to have a sharper mind. A mind that has a memory cabinet ten times larger than a genius. A mind where a student can store all that is needed to be memorized to have a perfect score for tomorrow’s quiz. Who would not want that?

Many scientists have discovered or created many supplements to enhance the functionality of our brain. This can either be the brain’s memory capacity, thinking skills, reasoning skills, solving skills, moods and others. There are many ways to aid the brain, may it be natural or supplementary. This article will tackle some supplements that can help us achieve a sharper mind.

First is Gingko Biloba. This supplement is a pure extract from an ancient tree which is said to give excellent benefits to the body. Also, many researches about this supplement have concluded that it can actually enhance or increase the metabolic rate of glucose in our brain, our main source of energy to do our daily activities. It then gives an additional blood and oxygen to our brain which will eventually increase our mind’s memory capacity and also the mental alertness.

Secondly, Lecithin. This supplement will serve as the main source of structural materials that every cell in our human body need, especially the ones needed by our brain and nerves.

Thirdly, Phenylalanine. This supplement is an important amino acid that will produce neurotransmitters. These substances are the main ingredient in order for the brain to produce norepinepherine which helps increase the brain’s mental alertness, vigour, and will also help in the learning process. It also helps in aiding the memory process of the brain.

Lastly, L-Glutamine. L-Glutamine is an essential amino acid that functions mainly as the fuel for the brain. It contributes greatly on how the brain is able to work. This supplement contains the ability to pick up excessive ammonia. Ammonia is not beneficial to the brain since it inhibits or restrains the brain to function greatly. In fact, L-Glutamine is a successful medication to treat schizophrenia and senility.

There are still many supplements out there to help us humans to increase our brain’s functionality. Also, many scientists are still studying or researching for more supplements to support the brain’s sharpness.

“Super Foods” for Increased Brain Functionality

Everybody wants a sharp mind. And some of us would want it in a safe way. This includes the natural way of consuming foods that could contribute to the functionality our mind. Below are list of some foods which we call “super foods” that can help us achieve a sharp mind. These Super Foods are consist of Vitamins B12, B6, C and E, also with folate, calcium, potassium, magnesium and betacarotene. Foods which consist of any of these will improve the brain’s memory.

Firstly is water. As what our doctors say, we should drink eight to ten glasses of water every day. Our brain is consist mostly of water. To be more precise, eighty five percent (85%) of our brain tissue is composed of water. If we do not consume enough water, a possibility of dehydration might occur. Thus, might affect the functionality of the brain. Thus, we must drink enough water to maintain of even enhance the brain’s functionality.

Secondly is honey. A 2007 research concluded that diets including honey can lower the chance of having anxiety and may improve the brain’s memory even when ageing. Honey is consist of antioxidants which helps in preventing free radicals. These free radicals damage cells in our body. Honey having antioxidants will help prevent free radicals.

Thirdly, is mango. Mango is a fruit. You do not need to cook it which means it is fresh and the nutrients inside it are well naturally preserved. Mangoes are also rich in glutamine acid. This acid is very essential protein which helps on concentration and for memory capacity.

Another one is spinach. Spinach is consist of 11% vitamin B6. 5% of vitamin E. A 33% of folate, calcium with a consistency of 12%, 20% magnesium and 12% of potassium. These essential nutrients will be very helpful in improving you brain’s functionality.

Other Super Foods are milk, black – eyed beans, acorn squash, kidney beans, pink salmon, orange juices, papaya, bock choy, baked potato, broccoli, wheat germ, banana, vegetable juice and tofu. There are still many super foods available out there that can be bought at the market, as long as you know which food would be helpful to your brain

The effects of stress on our Health

Stress is defined as a normal physiological response of an individual’s body to the situations which are alleged to be risky to the body. Anyone can be affected by stress at any point of their life.

Stress has both helpful and unhelpful effect. When we are going through hardness, or we encounter problems through our journey in this life, one reason that causes our improvement is stress. On the other hand, if stress becomes crucial like enduring a very long period of time without relaxation or rest, very serious psychological problems will occur to the individual. This article covers the negative effects of stress regarding an individual’s health.

Firstly, stress can cause a Depressive Disorder or more commonly known as Anxiety. Anxiety is defined as the uneasiness about future uncertainties. When an individual is experiencing a chronic stage of being stressed, he will forget how to enjoy life, do things to accomplish his goals, and how to maintain healthy relationships.

Secondly, stress can cause Heart Diseases and Stroke. Studies show that there has been a connection between acute stress, the heart and the circulatory system. Somehow, stress can increase the heart rate which will sooner restrict or forbid the functioning of the arteries. Thus, this will later cause cardiac events or cardiac accidents such as heart attack.

“I eat when I’m stressed” – this is the most common statement we can hear from different people. Humans can do anything just to cope up with stress. Likewise, research shows that the stress hormone known as Cortisol can cause an increase of abdominal fat. In some serious cases, some individuals ended up having disorders suck as anorexia, binge eating disorder and bulimia to help them cope up with stress.

Another negative effect of stress on an individual’s health is that it helps in developing Gastrointestinal Disorders. Stress somehow causes problems such as irritable bowel syndrome, ulcers, and inflammatory bowel disease. People going through a lot of stress experiences mild to moderate feeling of nausea, stomach ache, stomach discomfort, constipation or diarrhea.

Even if it is likely impossible to relax or de-stress oneself, it will still be very important to maintain physical, mental, spiritual and social balance to avoid the development of problems caused by stress.

Effects of Positive Thinking on Health

Positive thinking or what we call, being optimistic, helps us in overcoming stress and could even help u improve our health. Positive thinking simply means being able to approach the ugliness of life in a useful, productive and a more positive way. As an individual, we should not waste our time struggling on the unpleasant things of life. Instead, we should think on how to make that bitter situation into something that will be useful to us.

Self – talk is the unlimited river of thoughts running inside your head every second of the day. Self – talk can wither be positive or negative. These thoughts are acquired from logical and reasoning. Also, these thoughts can be acquired through the misinterpretation that we make from the lack of information and facts.

If the self –talk running inside the head are mostly negative, then our life will run in a pessimistic way. People like that are called pessimist. Approaching life in a negative way. On the other hand, if the self –talk are mostly positive, then our life will run optimistically. People this way are called optimist.

There are studies relating to the effects of positive thinking into an individual’s health. These studies shown that positive thinking can provide the following effects.

Lower rates of depression. Obviously, if an individual is too much busy thinking about how hopeless life is, his mind will then be in a state of stress and would not be able to function properly. Stress can also cause depression. Unlike an optimist, being able to approach life in a more productive way without thinking how it is hard to survive, he’ll then start to think of ways on how to encounter it and eventually, be able to overcome hardship which could help him in a major way.

If an individual is an optimist, he can live his life up to his 150’s. Positive thinking can be likely compared to the Law of Attraction. According to that said law, one way to attract the most you want for life is by wanting or needing it. The more you want something, then the more you attract its energy. Likewise, if an individual thinks positively, he’ll be able to attract positive energies that will help him greatly.

Positive thinking can contribute much to our health especially when it is positive. Thus, always think positively to be able to live life happily and more lively.

Effects of Diet to our Mood

Eating a proper diet everyday is very important for all of us to achieve a good life. Our body and our mind are connected to one another. Thus, the amount that you eat can give a great impact to what might be your mood.

To make the brain work or communicate, a certain chemical known as the neurotransmitters are needed to conduct electrical impulses or in simpler term, brain waves. Dopamine, endorphins, glutamine and serotonin are such neurotransmitters. Your body should necessarily manufacture these chemicals with the use of the enzymes, fatty acids, amino acids, mineral, proteins and carbohydrates which can be taken from the food that you eat. If you are not eating enough food or not eating enough of the right foods for your body to be able to manufacture these chemicals, you will end up having depression or anxiety as an effect.

Another mistake in terms of diet that will, in most cases, lead to low moods is by making your blood sugar or glycemic index (GI), rise and fall all through out the day. Not eating you meal can result to having a low blood sugar. On the other hand, simple consumption of starchy foods, sugary foods or what we call carbohydrates can make the blood sugar high. With this up and down of the blood sugar or glycemic index, this can greatly affect a person’s mood which will some time make them irritable, sad or forgetful.

Craving for carbohydrates is also an attempt to medicate yourself from depression in the way of raising your serotonin. This certain chemical is the one responsible for sleep, mood and appetite.

Also, eating foods with carbohydrates with a lower Glycemic Index (GI) means that the energy given by these foods will then be released to control or stabilize blood sugar levels. Because of that, it will help you feel better for a long time and will avoid the ups and down of the blood sugar level which may play a great part on the shifting of your moods. Such foods that are said to contain carbohydrates are wholemeal breads, boiled potatoes, sweet potatoes, pasta, brown rice, oats and wholegrain cereals.

Antioxidants and Anti-aging

Let us first introduce antioxidant and understand what its purpose to our body is. The human body, our body is composed of many different, various types of cells. And cells are composed of tiny molecules and these are consist of either one or more atoms. Each atom is made up of protons, neurons and electrons that are bonded together by certain chemicals. Each time a weak bond breaks or splits, a free – radical is formed. These free – radicals are very dangerous to the body. They are unstable and would search for other molecule. They connect themselves to another molecule and would still the electron. Through that process, it disrupts or worse, kill, living cells inside your body. Our body can naturally handle or control free – radicals on its own. But, without the presence of antioxidants and too much presence of free – radicals, worse is, it can damage the body.

The role of antioxidants is very important. This substance is present to neutralize deactivate free – radicals by sacrificing their own electron, since they are stable, which will eventually end the stealing of free-radicals. This will then prevent further damage of the tissue and can also avoid premature ageing and cardiac diseases.

Ageing is the process that we humans, wants to prevent. Of course, everybody wants to maintain their flawless skin forever and would anything for it. Unfortunately, ageing is inevitable. But, there is something we can do to maintain the wellness outside even with the process of ageing.

Ageing is the simultaneous damage mainly caused by free – radicals. If you want to slow the process of ageing, first thing to do is to reduce the number of free – radicals inside our body. To fight free-radicals, antioxidants should be present in our body and one way to do that is to include foods with antioxidants into our diet. This will then deactivate free-radicals in our body and will eventually detoxify, protect the body and slows down the speed of ageing.

Thus, for slowing the ageing process and to maintain beauty, it is therefore advisable to take foods that are rich with antioxidants.

Advantages of Including Low GI Foods in Your Diet

First, let me introduce and succinctly define, GI. GI is the abbreviation for the word Glycaemic Index. Glycaemic Index or GI was invented at the year 1981 by Dr. David Jenkins at the University of Toronto used to measure the effects of certain foods to the blood sugar level. On the GI, 100 indicate a pure glucose. The index was originally invented to have a more accurate guide to the glycaemic response of human body to different sources of carbohydrates.

Foods with a high GI are helpful for the quick release of energy but only in a short term. In consequence, foods with a high GI should only be eaten in moderation for they may cause negative effects on the body.

On the other hand, it is also good idea of eating foods with low GI in your day to day diet because theses foods offer sustained energy with a steady and gradual change of your blood glucose.

In comparison, low GI foods are digested slowly and absorbed by the body gradually. Because of this, your blood glucose will change in a slow, steady way. Otherwise, foods with high GI are digested and absorbed quickly by the body, thus, causing an unnatural pace in the change of the blood glucose. Foods with high GI will cause increase damage to the oxidative vascular of the body and will increase insulin production. Both of these contribute greatly to diabetes and any other heart diseases.

Having a low GI food included in your diet has many advantageous effects. It helps in managing your appetite, improves endurance, demand of insulin will be lower, lessens cholesterol, balanced energy level, and most specially, it improves your endurance.

Studies including low GI foods to be healthy have been done in the past few years already. It has been found out that it can reduce the possibility of acquiring diseases, or even death, by suppressing or crushing inflammation. Such example of these diseases are diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, lung diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, etc. And foods with high GI, contains, high GI carbs, which contribute greatly to inflammation, thus increasing the possibility of acquiring inflammation-caused diseases.

Eating low GI foods also helps in curing PCOS (Polycystic ovarian syndrome), a state associated by having multiple cysts in the ovary, abnormal hair growth in the face, and acne caused by abnormal androgen level in the female body. Women with PCOS are said to be resistant in insulin meaning that insulin do not work too well.

A study was conducted to prove this and found out that, women with low GI diet tend to do better than a regular diet. In the low GI diet, majority of the women observed an improvement to their menstrual cycle and has improved blood sugar control. Concluding that a low GI diet is very helpful in curing women with PCOS.

Eating food with low GI is really advantageous for the body. Many should try this diet for them to decrease the possibility of acquiring serious diseases.

December 2, 2010

Errk! (>.<)

It was 12:00 noon and I haven't eaten my breakfast and was planning to eat lunch after class. Because of that, I was very sleepy and couldn't control it any more. I was doing my best just not to fall unconscious, but what could I do? my forehead hit the armchair. Unaware, our instructor that time was calling names for an oral recitation. Luck the first two since they were only tasked to read a paragraph. One for each. And as for me, the less-fortunate one, I was called thirdly and was asked a question on which I was clueless.

"Oh meeeennn!" I thought. "How lucky! -.-" Even before that recitation, we were having our discussion about Objective paragraphs and how to write and determine one. I couldn't really focus on what she was telling us. Every time I blink, it could barely open. I was absent minded. My mind flying and my eyes falling.

After that, being able to give the...WRONG ANSWER! I was not sleepy any more. I could even control my eyes at that time. HAH! But still, embarrassed. I was really sweaty after that. Everyone would have laughed at me.

I told myself, "this will be the last time". >:) *evil laugh in mind*