Encouraging Health

Pillows

Sleep time is optimum for cellular repair because there are more hours for products to sink in and fewer environmental stressors to prevent absorption, says Tina Alster, M.D., a dermatologist in Washington, D.C.

If you have dry to normal skin, after cleansing, apply a dime-sized blob of Vaseline to slightly damp skin. Rub it in until it becomes less greasy (within 30 seconds — we promise!). The petrolatum creates a seal, so moisture penetrates and plumps skin rather than evaporates.

If you have oily skin, opt for a serum that’s noncomedogenic to keep from clogging pores. Try one that has skin-strengthening peptides, too, such as Kinerase C6 Peptide Intensive Treatment, $77.

Deflate puffy, tired eyes
To awaken looking rested, treat eyes before you snooze with a generous dose of a caffeine-packed eye cream (a good one: 100% Pure Caffeine Eye Cream, $19).

Make drab hair dazzle
Use your downtime to get less frizzy hair with an ultra-conditioning mask. Look for products that say overnight on the label (SELF likes new L’Oréal Professionnel Liss Ultime Nuit Treatment, $35); they are less messy than an in-the-shower mask. Apply to towel-dried hair (it will slide off if hair is too wet), then help the mask penetrate by covering it with a shower cap.

There are countless ways to help your body mend itself, that doesn’t cost much. Number one is drink plenty of water. Since the body is made mostly of water, replenish, replenish, replenish! Use moisturising cream on your face and body. Don’t eat processed foods: go natural! Finally, get your beauty sleep.

White Roses

Sex and relationships
Where the sex is spectacular
1. United Kingdom
2. Poland
3. Netherlands
4. Romania
5. Philippines
Worst Sex Lives
20. Italy

What went into the scores: We analyzed marriage rates, divorced population, sex partners and frequency, masturbation habits, number of friends, sexual satisfaction, and affairs.

POLAND: Charm her pants off
Men in number two Poland are monogamous and happy with their sex lives. “The Polish way of approaching women is still chivalrous,” says Beata Dzugaj, an editor at Men’s Health Poland. This fosters more committed relationships than casual hookups in the long run. And commitment equals more sex.

What you can learn from Poland: Date the way your parents did. “Make the first call, and invite her out for a real date,” Dzugaj says. “Bring flowers, kiss her hand, open the door for her.” These gestures make her feel like a potential partner rather than a conquest.

UNITED KINGDOM: Speak up in the sack
There’s a good reason why English men were the most sexually satisfied men in our survey: They know how to use their mouths. “British men aren’t scared to ask for what they want in bed,” says Emily Dubberley, a British sex expert.

What you can learn from the U.K.: If you’re eager to try something new, ask on a night when she’s feeling confident and you’ve complimented her endlessly. Pleasing her in return will also help your case, says Yvonne K. Fulbright, Ph.D., author of Touch Me There! “Anything you do — whether kissing, licking, or touching — do it in circles.”

Clock

Work and stress
Where relaxation reigns
1. Spain
2. Canada
3. Australia
4. United States
5. Romania
Most stressed-out
20. India

What went into the scores: We surveyed workweek hours, vacation time, happiness, commutes, spending on leisure, and whether men check work e-mail at home.

SPAIN: Take meetings outside
Afternoon siestas aren’t the only reason a scant 19 percent of Spaniards consider their jobs “too stressful.” “Spanish men build in breaks and social interaction throughout the workday,” says Patricia Ramirez, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in Andalusia, Spain. “They also have the habit of leaving the office a few times during the day. Instead of drinking the company coffee, they’ll go out with a colleague and brainstorm over espresso.”

What you can learn from Spain: Skipping out to Starbucks at 3 o’clock will help, but you also need a longer break, a.k.a. a bona fide vacation. In Spain they take off the entire month of August. In the United States, you should shoot for two 1-week vacations a year. If you can’t swing two, at least try for three consecutive long weekends, says Ramirez. “That’s enough to feel like a break without requiring a lot of time off.”

And if you think your R & R makes the boss unhappy, consider this: In a survey of executives, over half said employees were more productive after a vacation.

So take your leisure time more seriously! Enjoy what life has to offer, do things you used to enjoy, go to new places, see new things. Even if it is on your lunch hour!

Ginger

Possibly. One new contender for soothing creaky knees is ginger.

When people with stiff, sore, osteoarthritic knees took a ginger extract for 6 weeks, they felt significantly better than their placebo-dosed pals who got fake ginger.

Anti-Inflammatory Action
Long used in Eastern medicine to treat musculoskeletal problems, ginger contains a complex mix of compounds that researchers suspect helps thwart inflammation in several ways. And in the study, side effects (stomach upset) were mild.

Ginger Goodness
Along with its inflammation-cooling properties, ginger may have anticancer powers, too. And the ginger ale your grandma dispensed when your stomach was upset? There’s science behind that as well. Ginger is a well-known nausea reliever.

Special anticancer compounds in ginger.

If you’re cooking in the kitchen with ginger, chances are you’re lowering your risk of cancer.

Every pantry should be stocked with this knobby-looking rootstock spice. It possesses two cancer-inhibiting compounds, 6-gingerol and 6-paradol, and it lends a warm, pungent twist to dishes, especially fish. In fact, you may be most familiar with the pickled ginger that is often served with sushi. For the most benefit, choose fresh over pickled whenever possible; simply peel, shred, and mince the root into foods

Kona Africa Bike One

Today’s tidbit is: Fitness

Where they work up a sweat
1. Netherlands
2. Canada
3. Poland
4. Ukraine
5. United Kingdom
Most Sedentary
20. Romania

What went into the scores: We crunched obesity rates, strength (from situps and pushups), time spent exercising each week, and six-pack prevalence.

CANADA: Adopt a reason to exercise
Most of Canada’s biggest cities are 50 percent green space, which may be why men there exercise an average of 5.2 hours a week. Living near a park makes you twice as likely to exercise, says the American Journal of Health Promotion. “It’s easy to be motivated when you see activity around you,” says Craig Ballantyne, C.S.C.S., a personal trainer in Toronto.

What you can learn from Canada: Don’t live near a park? Tap into canine inspiration. A Canadian study found that dog owners exercise more — 5 hours per week –than their poochless peers. Labrador retrievers and German shorthaired pointers both make good running buddies.

NETHERLANDS: Cycle to a six-pack
One in five Dutch men can see their abs, and that’s nearly the number who ride a bike to work. “Cycling is great for core strength. Everything is done on a bike here,” says Asker Jeukendrup, Ph.D., Men’s Health Netherlands’ fitness advisor.

What you can learn from the Netherlands: If your commute is impossible to pedal, do like the Dutch and run errands on two wheels. Trips shorter than 3 miles can be biked in 15 to 20 minutes. If you’re sans cycle, consider the 3-speed Kona AfricaBike ($325); it’s rugged enough for urban errands.

Microscope

U.S. researchers have reversed multiple sclerosis symptoms in early stage patients by using bone marrow stem cell transplants to reset the immune system, they said on Thursday.

Some 81 percent of patients in the early phase study showed signs of improvement with the treatment, which used chemotherapy to destroy the immune system, and injections of the patient’s bone marrow cells taken beforehand to rebuild it.

“We just start over with new cells from the stem cells,” said Dr. Richard Burt of Northwestern University in Chicago, whose study appears in the journal Lancet Neurology.

His approach is aimed at turning back the clock to a time before the immune system began attacking itself.

Burt said the approach — called autologous non-myeloablative hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation — is a bit gentler than the therapy used in cancer patients because rather than destroying the entire bone marrow, it attacks just the immune system component of the marrow, making it less toxic.

Burt and colleagues tried the treatment on 21 patients aged 20 to 53 with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, an earlier stage in the disease in which symptoms come and go.

Patients in the study were not helped by at least six months of standard treatment with interferon beta.

Cup of Coffee

We’ve all had a sleepless night or two. Either failing to fall asleep or waking up during the night for a few hours, with your partner next to you. It’s tempting to smother their snores with your pillow.

Before you take drastic measures, look at what you eat.

Think about what you ate the night before, says Elizabeth Somer, RD, author of The Food & Mood Cookbook. Any of the following — much less a combo platter — can leave your body on uneasy street for hours:

• Spicy foods: Garlic, chilies, cayenne, and other intense spices are yummy going down, but they can keep you up with heartburn or indigestion. Avoid MSG, too, as it can trigger dreams that are a bit too vivid.

• A big dinner: An overtaxed digestive system takes hours to settle down, and there’s nothing restful about that. When sleep’s critical, make lunch your largest meal, and enjoy a light 500-calorie dinner early in the evening.

• Raucous veggies: Eat those good-for-you-but-gassy foods — beans, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts — in the middle of the day. A tankful of gas can keep anyone up at night.

• Speed eating: Relax and enjoy meals to avoid swallowing air, another common cause of midnight tummy trouble.

• Nightcaps: Alcohol may make you drowsy at first, but later on it disturbs sleep patterns and leads to awakenings and restlessness. A 4-ounce glass of wine with dinner won’t hurt, as long as it’s not within 2 hours of bedtime.

• Coffee after breakfast: Caffeine can linger in your body for as long as 12 hours. So if you’re often wide-eyed at bedtime, make sure you’re caffeine-clean for at least 12 hours.

Tissues

No, that’s not really today’s post. Woke yesterday with a cold and it’s blossommed wonderfully. Been taking 12-hour cold tablets (that last only 9) and vitamin C–ran out of echinacea though.

How do you tell the difference between a cold and the flu?

It’s important to know the difference between flu and cold symptoms. A cold is a milder respiratory illness than the flu. While cold symptoms can make you feel bad for a few days, flu symptoms can make you feel quite ill for a few days to weeks. The flu can also result in serious health problems such as pneumonia and even hospitalizations.

What are common cold symptoms?
Cold symptoms usually begin with a sore throat, which usually goes away after a day or two. Nasal symptoms, runny nose, and congestion follow, along with a cough by the fourth and fifth days. Fever is uncommon in adults, but a slight fever is possible. Children are more likely to have a fever with a cold.

long do cold symptoms last?
Cold symptoms usually last for about a week. During the first three days that you have cold symptoms, you are contagious. This means you can pass the cold to others, so stay home and get some much-needed rest.

If cold symptoms do not seem to be improving after a week, you may have a bacterial infection, which means you may need antibiotics.

What are common flu symptoms?
Flu symptoms are usually more severe than cold symptoms and come on quickly. Flu symptoms include sore throat, fever, headache, muscle aches and soreness, congestion, and cough. The flu is caused by a variety of influenza viruses.

Most flu symptoms gradually improve over two to five days, but it’s not uncommon to feel run down for a week or more. A common complication of the flu is pneumonia, particularly in the young, elderly, or people with lung or heart problems. If you notice shortness of breath, you should let your doctor know. Another common sign of pneumonia is fever that comes back after having been gone for a day or two.

Just like cold viruses, flu viruses enter your body through the mucous membranes of your nose, eyes, or mouth. Every time you touch your hand to one of these areas, you could be infecting yourself with a virus, which makes it very important to keep your hands germ-free with frequent washing to prevent both flu and cold symptoms.

So, keep your fluids up, drink plenty of fluids and get your rest.

Kidneys

Having received a kidney from a deceased person, I can’t imagine a living donor. Although, this is good news, that donating a kidney has no long-term ill effects.

Kidney donation has generally been considered safe, although with surgery, there are always risks. The new research of nearly 3,700 donors dating back more than four decades is the largest and longest study to look at long-term outcomes, said the researchers. They reported their findings in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

“It is a confirmation that living donation is a safe thing,” said Dr. Matthew Cooper, a transplant surgeon at the University of Maryland, who was not involved in the research.

Kidneys filter waste and excess fluid from the blood. If your kidneys fail, the options are dialysis or a transplant. More than 78,000 people are on the national waiting list to receive a kidney from a deceased donor. The need for kidneys has soared with the rise in diabetes and obesity and the wait can last for years.

Dr. Hassan Ibrahim, the study’s leader, and his colleagues wanted to find out what happened to the 3,698 people who had donated a kidney at the university since 1963. They tried to contact everyone and used government records to find out who had died. A group of 255 donors was randomly selected to have kidney and other tests. Results were compared with health outcomes for the general population.

Overall, 268 of the donors died, which the researchers said was comparable to survival in the general population. Eleven donors developed kidney failure decades later and needed dialysis or a transplant. The researchers said the rate of kidney failure in the donors was lower than that reported in the general population.

Most of the donors tested had good kidney function and reported an excellent quality of life, the study found.

A Hallucinogenic Tea

There are few true Shamans left, according to the Shamans de Rios interviews for the book. Training takes two years and requires many hardships, such as forays into the forrest, severe diets, celibacy: so much so, that the Amazon youth prefer city life to taking up tribal customs, such as Shamanism.

That’s not to say they don’t produce their own brand of Shamanism to tourists, offering Ayahuasca Tea (without the proper prayers, chanting, etc) to tourists. This is called “Drug Tourism” and the authors detail what Drug Tourism is and how it is harming Tribal life and how it affects how the plant is disappearing from the Amazon.

This is a great book that discusses the manners in which Shamans train, believe, go about their vocation, administer to local tribes (mostly women and children). With drinking the tea, a Shaman ‘communicates’ with spirits (not as we in the West describe them) then help whomever comes to him. In it’s proper respect, Ayahuasca Tea helps the proper Shaman delve into the problem, thus helping his ‘customer’.

Improper use of the tea has skyrocketed, and many false Shamans have sprung up around the Countries. Countries don’t seem to mind, as the ‘drug tourism’ brings in much needed capital. Although Shamanism is dying out, the religion it professes has spread to many Western and Industrialized Nations, including the United States.

And there was the problem, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency here in the U.S. When the religion started, the U.S. placed the tea on their list of forbidden substances. After many years and lawsuits later, the religion won their right to use the tea for their services.

The book is enjoyable, as the authors discuss conversations with Shamans, details religious rites, reasons for using the Hallucinogenic Tea, their use of psychology, biology, counseling, consultation of spirits, etc., the authors do repeat themselves quite often.

Overall, I recommend this book to anyone interested in Cultural Anthropology, Shamanism, Amazonin Influences, Religions.