If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know the man, don’t bother analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, or seeing how much he is moved by noble ideas; you’ll get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he laughs well, he’s a good man…All I claim to know is that laughter is the most reliable gauge of human nature.
Feodor Dostoyevsky(11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881,[was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. )
Laughing heartily and uncontrollably provides a physical release. Several muscles are stretched and exercised including throughout our face and body, the diaphragm, the abdomen muscles and the shoulders; our pulse and blood pressure go up, and we breathe faster, sending more oxygen to our tissues. Blood circulation is increased for all major body organs including the brain. Laughter even provides some exercise for the heart. Increased blood circulation stimulates facial muscles so you might even look better!
Some researchers report that laughter can reduce pain. Increasingly, medical experts use laughter therapy in cancer care and with other chronic illnesses.
When we laugh, stress hormone levels are reduced and levels of healthy hormones are increased. The body’s immune system improves with the release of endorphins, those natural ‘feel-good’ chemicals.
These physical effects account for the cleansed feeling that happens after a good laugh
It’s hard to feel anxious or sad when you are having a good laugh. Laughter distracts. It takes your mind away from daily problems and worries. When the endorphins reach your brain, stress levels are automatically reduced. You relax and as you relax you recharge. You start to feel good and your mind clears.
Laughter can also provides a new perspective. Very often I need my husband’s light-hearted view of the world to help me see situations differently. His easy laughter re-frames problems which helps me to see new possibilities — and sometimes, to find novel solutions.
Experts consider the social benefits of laughter as the most powerful way that laughter influences health. This winter I have played bridge with a wonderful group of women. The bridge games often involve eating a meal together, sharing stories and lots of good laughs as we play. My bridge game is getting better. More importantly, new bonds of friendship are forming as we laugh at our mistakes and learn together.
Laughter creates and strengthens relationships. It is contagious. When you laugh, others laugh too — thus the quality of social interaction improves.
You can learn to laugh at any stage of life. Even if you are going through a difficult phase of life, laughter will contribute to your overall outlook and keep you young and healthy.
People who believe in the benefits of laughter say it can be like a mild workout — and may offer some of the same advantages as a workout.
“The effects of laughter and exercise are very similar,” says Steve Wilson, MA, CSP, a psychologist and laugh therapist. He states “Combining laughter and movement, like waving your arms, is a great way to boost your heart rate.”
One pioneer in laughter research, William Fry, claimed it took ten minutes on a rowing machine for his heart rate to reach the level it would after just one minute of hearty laughter.
And laughter appears to burn calories, too. Maciej Buchowski, a researcher from Vanderbilt University, conducted a small study in which he measured the amount of calories expended in laughing. It turned out that 10-15 minutes of laughter burned 50 calories.
While the results are intriguing, don’t be too hasty in ditching that treadmill. One piece of chocolate has about 50 calories; at the rate of 50 calories per hour, losing one pound would require about 12 hours of concentrated laughter!
Laughter is a positive effect on our health!
Memory lapses can occur at any age, but we tend to get more upset by them as we get older because we fear they’re a sign of dementia, or loss of intellectual function. The fact is, significant memory loss in older people isn’t a normal part of aging—but is due to organic disorders, brain injury, or neurological illness, with Alzheimer’s being among the most feared.
Harvard Medical School
“No matter what your brain status or age, there is much we can do to significantly improve brain functions and slow brain aging.”
Dr. Larry McCleary (Former Acting Chief, Pediatric Neurosurgery, Denver Children’s Hospital Author of The Brain Trust Program)
First let us look at the functions the brain has in its operations:
– Memory
Memory is probably the easiest of the cognitive domains to understand. Memory is the process through which new information about our world is encoded, stored and later retrieved by our brain cells. The ability to remember new facts and new ways of doing things is not only key to our ability to maintain independent lives, our memories are what individualizes each and everyone of us. Our personal memories of past experiences and of family and friends are valuable treasures. Sadly, these treasures are often lost or become tarnished as we age and in tragic cases, with the onset of dementia. For this reason alone, it is necessary that we continue to exercise and activate the neural networks that form our memories. It is also important that we continue to find new strategies and tools to help us form new memories.
– Focus
We live in a world of instant communication and sometimes the demands of work and family can become unbearable and seemingly never-ending. When we become mentally fatigued or over burdened we can lose our ability to prioritize, our ability to identify important information and our ability to stay on task. At home, at the office and at school, we are constantly pulled in multiple directions at the same time and losing focus and concentration can result in us failing to meet our obligations. In addition to providing our brains with the rest and relaxation it needs to operate at its best, it is also important that we engage in brain exercises that can improve our ‘mental endurance’, focus and concentration.
It is also important that we exercise this cognitive domain to find new strategies to overcome specific challenges such as ADD/ADHD. You need to provide your brain with the best and newest brain fitness tools that will improve your concentration and strengthen your mental endurance. Which can be done through games and exercises that will engage your brain and sharpen your focus and teach you new ways to stop wasting time. With stronger concentration skills, improved attention to detail, and sharper focus you can expect to live life with less confusion, less stress and a greater feeling of mental clarity. Strengthening your focus is a surefire way to improve your performance at work or at school.
– Word Skills
Language is the highly evolved human skill that enables us to effectively communicate our thoughts and emotions with the rest of the world. Language is what allows us to grow as people, to share ideas with others and to form the social bonds that bring true value and meaning to our lives. And the fabulous fact about our word skills and capacity for language is that we can continue to improve these skills over the course of our lives.
Unfortunately, on the other side of the coin is fact that our spoken and written word skills can degrade over time with out practice. I’m sure we can all remember a time during conversation when we found ourselves dumbfounded and embarrassed as we struggled to find a word stuck on the tip of our tongue. Or maybe we can remember a time when we mis-used or mis-spelled a fancy word in an important email. As we grow, it is important that we continue to expand our vocabulary, improve our language comprehension skills and find new ways to make our words mean more to the people in our lives.
You can do this through fun and effective brain fitness games and tools to help them continue to grow their capacity for language. Improving word-skills with brain fitness games and exercises is a sure fire way to increase your verbal communication confidence and reduce social anxiety.
– Coordination
From the moment we wake up in the morning until we fall asleep at night, we humans are constantly on the move! And for most of us, our ability to make purposeful, timely and accurate movements is often taken for granted as we go about our day. But the truth is that our ability to perform the seemingly infinite number of goal directed movements we make is the result of our brain precisely detecting sensory information from the world around us and integrating it with our internal motivations to accurately execute the appropriate motor commands that tell our muscles how to move.
Unfortunately, as we age, this process becomes more difficult and moving about the world can become more challenging than it once was before. For most of us, our senses tend to dull, our reaction times become a bit slower and seemingly simple motor tasks such as writing, driving our car and moving about to enjoy the things we love to do can become more difficult. For this reason, it is important that we not only exercise our muscles to maintain strength and flexibility to stay mobile, but that we also exercise the areas of our brain that are involved in coordinating our movements.
You need to provide yourself with fun and challenging brain fitness tools that will help improve your sensory perception, manual dexterity, spatial awareness and precision of movement. By doing you can continue to make the most of your independent lifestyle.
– Critical Thinking
Critical thought can also be referred to as our brain’s ‘executive function’. And as such, we can think of our critical thinking skills, as the analysis tools used by the CEO of our brain.
Critical thinking skills are the tools we use to objectively analyze information, recognize patterns, follow logical rules, strategize, and solve problems. It is also the brain function that provides us with the ability to form the complex chronological and spatial plans we use to navigate our lives. Everyday we use our critical thinking skills to objectively analyze the world we live and thrive as individuals.
Along with Language, higher order critical thinking skills are what separate us humans from the rest of the Animal Kingdom. And anatomically speaking, the parts of our brain that allows us to think critically reside in the most highly evolved parts of our brain, the frontal and temporal lobes of the cortex. Sadly, it is most often our critical thinking skills that decline with age-related dementia. Our critical thinking skills also need to be fostered at an early age and throughout our lives in order for our brains to operate at their best.
Fortunately, research investigating the phenomenon of neuroplasticity has taught us that we can actually change the way our brains are wired. By engaging in intellectually stimulating activities and by taking on cognitive challenges we actually have the ability to strengthen our critical thinking skills and improve our executive function. But if we want to enhance our critical thinking skills globally, it is important that we exercise our executive functions individually and as a whole. For example, it is important to engage in a variety of different brain exercise designed to improve deductive reasoning, logical reasoning, pattern recognition skill, strategic decision-making skill and the efficiency of our brain’s ability to process information.
By taking a ‘whole- body approach’ and incorporating brain fitness into your daily routines you will be making the lifestyle changes needed to sharpen your minds and reduce your risk of dementia.
Since the human brain peaks in size at about age 20 and then starts to shrink, you might think that by age 70 or 80, you’d be lucky to remember your name. The good news is that memory loss is not inevitable. “There are examples of people who have lived to 123 years of age who died with completely intact memories and no evidence of neuropathology,” said Sam Gandy, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Cognitive Health at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.
A history of infectious mononucleosis due to infection by Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) may increase risk of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma but the precise contribution of Epstein–Barr virus remains largely unknown. Hodgkin lymphoma is characterized by the orderly spread of disease from one lymph node group to another and by the development of systemic symptoms with advanced disease. When Hodgkins cells are examined microscopically, multinucleated Reed–Sternberg cells (RS cells) are the characteristic histopathologic finding.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital
Hodgkin’s lymphoma — formerly known as Hodgkin’s disease — is a cancer of the lymphatic system, which is part of your immune system.
In Hodgkin’s lymphoma, cells in the lymphatic system grow abnormally and may spread beyond the lymphatic system. As Hodgkin’s lymphoma progresses, it compromises your body’s ability to fight infection.
Hodgkin’s lymphoma is one of two common types of cancers of the lymphatic system. The other type, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, is far more common.
Advances in diagnosis and treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma have helped give people with this diagnosis the chance for a full recovery. The prognosis continues to improve for people with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Hodgkin’s lymphoma signs and symptoms may include:
Your time with your doctor is limited, so preparing a list of questions can help you make the most of your time together.
Your doctor is likely to ask you a number of questions. Being ready to answer them may reserve time to go over points you want to spend more time on.
TURN INTO PART 2 ON MONDAY (tests, procedures and treatment for the disease).
It is known that hyperinsulinemia precedes type II diabetes and that it is associated with an adverse cardiovascular risk profile.
American Heart Association
There are several stages involved in the development of heart disease. Unfortunately having too much insulin in your blood is involved in each and every stage. Without disease that affects your insulin level, like in diabetes, you can help control this through prevention measures in dieting, exercise with balance of resting.
Stage 1: First excessive insulin raises the level of bad cholesterol in the blood – the LDL version. At the same time it decreases the level of “good” cholesterol – the HDL variety. Then it goes on to increase the level of triglycerides in the blood – yet another risk factor for heart disease. Excessive insulin also causes your blood to clot more quickly which increases your risk of stroke. Though your kidneys are not insulin sensitive, when your insulin level is elevated it indirectly causes your kidneys to retain salt and fluid which further increases your blood pressure.
Stage 2: In this stage excessive insulin increases cellular proliferation which damages the lining of your blood vessels. This increases the blood vessels vulnerability and sets the stage for even more blood vessel damage.
Stage 3: In this third stage insulin plays a different role. There are two very different kinds of LDL cholesterol. “Pattern A” LDL cholesterol is light, floats on water and represents no particular threat to the human body. But “Pattern B” LDL is a smaller particle, much more dense form that’s intimately involved in the heart disease process. That’s because it’s this denser form that attaches itself to the blood vessel lining to form artery-clogging plaques. Excessive insulin increases this more dangerous form of LDL. It’s this kind of LDL that forms the “fatty streak” plaques that are the hallmark of early heart disease.
Stage 4: Excessive insulin promotes the conversion of specialized cells called microphages in your blood into foam cells which further promotes the formation of dangerous plaques.
Stage 5: Before the plaque becomes dangerous it must be oxidized by free radicals. Once again insulin plays a role by increasing the level of dangerous tissue-damaging free radicals in your blood. The smaller dense LDL particles that excessive insulin promotes are more subject to free radical oxidation.
Stage 6: This damage to your blood vessel lining triggers an inflammatory response which contributes to the vicious cycle. Excessive insulin boosts inflammation throughout the body including within the lining of blood vessels. Many medical researchers feel that inflammation plays a major role in heart disease and excessive insulin plays a major role in generating it. In addition, studies have shown that this increased level of inflammation can directly damage brain neurons. (The C-reactive blood test measures the level of inflammation in your body. Today more and more doctors are using the test in recognition of the key role inflammation plays in so many different diseases.)
Stage 7: As the plaque builds over the years, it eventually restricts the flow of blood causing either chest pain or other symptoms in other parts of your body. If the blood vessels feeding the brain become restricted, your brain function will inevitably be affected. In numerous studies where insulin was injected into the blood vessels of lab animals, it was found that thick artery clogging plaques accumulated just downstream from the injection sites.
Stage 8: Excessive insulin also directly stimulates the central nervous system raising blood pressure which further increases the risk of a heart attack or stroke. At this stage you may experience TIAs (transient ischemic attacks) which are small strokes that damage small areas of your brain. Damage caused by TIAs are commonly found in the brains of deceased Alzheimer’s patients.
Stage 9: Excessive insulin causes the body to increase it’s excretion of magnesium which causes a magnesium deficiency which can then trigger arterial spasms that can directly cause a heart attack. If a heart attack doesn’t get you, remember that excessive insulin has already increased the blood’s tendency to clot. A blood clot can easily form at the site of the spasm and travel to other areas of the body such as the lungs where it can cause a fatal embolism.
Stage 10: You’re officially diagnosed as having heart disease and if that isn’t bad enough this diagnosis dramatically increases your risk of dementia and premature death.
After reading the above it should come as no shock that studies have found that fatal heart attacks are three times more likely after a high carbohydrate meal than after a high fat/protein meal!
During an angioplasty in OR for a blockage , the balloon is inflated and the spring-like stent expands and locks into place inside the artery tring to break up the blockage. If their are too many blockages or its unsuccessful a stent is put in place. The stent stays in the artery permanently to hold it open and improve blood flow to your heart.
MAYO CLINIC