Your Thoughts Affect Your Genes
We tend to think of our genetic heritage as a fait accompli. At our conception, our parents handed down whatever genetic legacy they inherited — genes for baldness, tallness, disease or whatever — and now we’re left playing the hand of DNA we were dealt. But, in fact, our genes are open to being influenced throughout our lifetime, both by what we do and by what we think, feel and believe.
The new and growing field of “epigenetics” studies extra-cellular factors that influence genetic expression. While you may have heard that genes can be influenced by diet and exercise, many researchers are now exploring the ways that thoughts, feelings and beliefs can exert the same epigenetic effect. It turns out that the chemicals catalyzed by our mental activity can interact with our genes in a powerful way. Much like the impacts of diet, exercise and environmental toxins, various thought patterns have been shown to turn certain genes “on” or “off.”
The Research
In his book The Genie in Your Genes (Elite Books, 2009), researcher Dawson Church, PhD, explains the relationship between thought and belief patterns and the expression of healing- or disease-related genes. “Your body reads your mind,” Church says. “Science is discovering that while we may have a fixed set of genes in our chromosomes, which of those genes is active has a great deal to do with our subjective experiences, and how we process them.”
One recent study conducted at Ohio University demonstrates vividly the effect of mental stress on healing. Researchers gave married couples small suction blisters on their skin, after which they were instructed to discuss either a neutral topic or a topic of dispute for half an hour. Researchers then monitored the production of three wound-repair proteins in the subjects’ bodies for the next several weeks, and found that the blisters healed 40 percent slower in those who’d had especially sarcastic, argumentative conversations than those who’d had neutral ones.
Church explains how this works. The body sends a protein signal to activate the genes associated with wound healing, and those activated genes then code blank stem cells to create new skin cells to seal the wound. But when the body’s energy is being “sucked up” by the production of stress biochemicals like cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine, like it is during a nasty fight, the signal to your wound-healing genes is significantly weaker, and the repair process slows way down. By contrast, when the body is not preparing for a perceived threat, its energy stores remain readily available for healing missions.
Why It Matters to You
Just about every body comes equipped with the genetic material it needs to deal optimally with the physical challenges of daily life, and the degree to which you can maintain your mental equilibrium has a real impact on your body’s ability to access those genetic resources. While habits of mind can be challenging to break, deliberate activities like meditation (see the following studies) can help you refashion your neural pathways to support less reactive thought patterns.
Chronic Stress Can Prematurely Age Your Brain
“There’s always going to be stress in the environment,” says Howard Fillit, MD, clinical professor of geriatrics and medicine at New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine and executive director of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. “But what’s damaging is the distress we feel internally in response to it.”
Fillit’s distinction points to the bodywide reaction our bodies experience when we routinely respond to stress by going into fight-or-flight mode. In our brains, the stress response can cause memory and other aspects of cognition to become impaired, which is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and accelerated memory loss with aging. One thing that can happen is you can start feeling a lot older, mentally, than you are.
“Patients come in complaining of faulty memory and wonder if they’re beginning to get Alzheimer’s,” says Roberta Lee, MD, vice-chair of the Department of Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center and author of The Superstress Solution (Random House, 2010). “Their workups and MRI scans look normal. In the interview, I ask them about their lifestyle and almost invariably they have compounded stress.”
The Research
Studies at the University of California–San Francisco have shown that repeated instances of the stress response (and their accompanying floods of cortisol) can cause shrinkage of the hippocampus — a key part of the brain’s limbic system vital to both stress regulation and long-term memory. Call it the downside of neuroplasticity.

Why It Matters to You
Aside from the obvious — no one wants his or her brain to age faster than it’s already going to — this research matters because it suggests that you have some influence over the rate of your own cognitive change.
To protect the brain from cortisol-related premature aging, Lee suggests building stress disruptors into your regular routine: “A five-minute period in the middle of every day during which you do absolutely nothing — nothing! — can help a lot, especially if you are consistent about it,” she says.
Her other recommendations include eating breakfast every day — complex carbohydrates (whole grains, veggies) and some protein. “Breakfast helps your metabolism feel like it won’t be stressed — caught up in a starvation-gluttony pattern,” she explains.
And when anxiety does strike, a good way to initiate the relaxation response is her “four-five breath” routine: breathing in through the nose to a count of four, then out through the mouth to a count of five. “Repeat it four times and you’ll feel the relaxation,” she says. “Best of all, do the four breaths twice daily, at the beginning and end of the day.”
Related: 9 Ways to Stop Stress
Meditation Rewires Your Brain
Meditation and other forms of relaxation and mindfulness not only change your immediate state of mind (and, correspondingly, your biochemical stress level and gene expression), they also can alter the very structure of your brain. Neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, PhD, cofounder of the San Francisco–based Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, has extensively studied the effect of meditation on the brain, with a particular focus on how neuroplasticity allows for permanent changes for the better in your gray matter.
The Research
“Of all the mental trainings — affirmations, psychotherapy, positive thinking, yoga — the one that has been far and away the most studied, in terms of effects on the brain, is meditation,” Hanson says. Some of the most prominent research has come from the collaboration between French-born Buddhist monk and author Matthieu Ricard and University of Wisconsin–Madison neuroscientist Richard Davidson, PhD. Their studies have shown that a high ratio of activity in the left prefrontal areas of the brain can mark either a fleeting positive mood or a more ingrained positive outlook.
Brain-imaging tests have shown that Ricard and other veteran Buddhist meditators demonstrate initial heightened activity in this region, along with a rapid ability to recover from negative responses brought on by frightening images shown to them by researchers. This suggests that their long-term meditation practice has helped build brains that are able to not just enjoy but sustain a sense of positive well-being, even in stressful moments.
Why It Matters to You
“Stimulating areas of the brain that handle positive emotions strengthens those neural networks, just as working muscles strengthens them,” Hanson says, repeating one of the basic premises of neuroplasticity. The inverse is also true, he explains: “If you routinely think about things that make you feel mad or wounded, you are sensitizing and strengthening the amygdala, which is primed to respond to negative experiences. So it will become more reactive, and you will get more upset more easily in the future.”
By contrast, meditative practices stimulate the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain’s outermost layer that controls attention (this is how meditation can lead to greater mindfulness, Hanson explains), as well as the insula, which controls interoception — the internal awareness of one’s own body. “Being in tune with your body via interoception keeps you from damaging it when you exercise,” Hanson says, “as well as building that pleasant, simple sense of being ‘in your body.’” Another plus of a strong insula is an increased sensitivity to “gut feelings” and intuitions and greater empathy with others.
Perhaps best of all, meditation develops the circuitry in the left prefrontal cortex, where the unruffled monks showed so much activity. “That’s an area that dampens negative emotion, so you don’t get so rattled by anger or fear, shame or sorrow,” Hanson says.
“Deciding to be mindful can alter your brain so that being mindful is easier and more natural,” he explains. “In other words, you can use your mind to change your brain to affect your mind.”
Related: Easy Steps to Bring Meditation Into Daily Life
Your Brain Learns By Doing
The mirror neuron system is the name for those regions of the brain with synapses that fire whether you’re actually doing or merely watching an action — as long as you’ve done it previously. Doing an action lays down neural connections that fire again when you watch the same action. This accounts for the connection you feel when viewing a sport you’ve played, or why you wince when you see someone else get hurt.
The Research
Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Parma in Italy first noted the mirror effect while studying the brains of macaque monkeys. When a monkey was watching one of the researchers pick up a peanut, the same neurons fired as if the monkey — likely a seasoned peanut gatherer — had picked up the nut itself. The researchers labeled these specific cells “mirror neurons.” In the human brain, entire regions light up in response to a familiar action; this endows us with a full-fledged mirror system.
Why It Matters to You
The existence of the mirror system helps explain why learning a new skill is easier if you try doing it early in life. This includes doing it clumsily, rather than hanging back watching your instructor or a video until you think you “have it.” Watching before you try means that you will probably see very little; watching after you try will engage the mirror system, increasing your brain’s power to “get it.”
As London-based neuroscientist Daniel Glaser, PhD, puts it, “When you look at something you have done before, you are actually using more of your brain to see it, so there’s a richer information flow. Until you started playing tennis, you couldn’t see the difference between a good topspin stroke and a bad one; after a few weeks of practice, when your coach demonstrates the stroke, you really get it visually. And you can thank the mirror system for that.”
The mirror system is also what endows you with the empathic ability to feel the pain or joy of others, based on what you register on their faces. “When we see someone else suffering or in pain, mirror neurons help us to read her or his facial expression and actually make us feel the suffering or the pain of the other person,” writes UCLA neurologist Marco Iacoboni, MD, PhD, in his book, Mirroring People (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008). “These moments, I will argue, are the foundation of empathy.”
Growing Older Can Make You Smarter
For some time, the prevailing view of a brain at midlife was that it’s “simply a young brain slowly closing down,” observes Barbara Strauch. But she notes that recent research has shown that middle age is actually a kind of cranial prime time, with a few comedic twists thrown in for fun.
“Researchers have found that — despite some bad habits — the brain is at its peak in those years. As it helps us navigate through our lives, the middle-age brain cuts through the muddle to find solutions, knows whom and what to ignore, when to zig and when to zag,” she writes. “It stays cool. It adjusts.”
The Research
Brain scientists used to be convinced that the main “driver” of brain aging was loss of neurons — brain-cell death. But new scanning technology has shown that most brains maintain most of their neurons over time. And, while some aspects of the aging process do involve losses — to memory, to reaction time — there are also some net gains, including a neat trick researchers call “bilateralization,” which involves using both the brain’s right and left hemispheres at once.
Strauch cites a University of Toronto study from the 1990s, soon after scanning technology became available, that measured the comparative ability of young and middle-age research subjects to match faces with names. The expected outcome was that older subjects would do worse at the task, but not only were they just as competent as younger subjects, PET scans revealed that, in addition to the brain circuits used by the younger crowd, the older subjects also tapped into the brain’s powerful prefrontal cortex. As some of their circuits weakened, they compensated by using other parts of the brain.
Ultimately, this means the effects of age caused them to use — and strengthen — more of their brains, not less.
Why It Matters to You
Gene Cohen, MD, PhD, who directs the Center on Aging, Health and Humanities at George Washington University Medical Center, notes that this ability to use more of your cognitive reserves strengthens your problem-solving ability as you enter the middle years, and it makes you more capable of comfortably negotiating contradictory thoughts and emotions. “This neural integration makes it easier to reconcile our thoughts with our feelings,” he wrote in “The Myth of the Midlife Crisis” (Newsweek, Jan. 16, 2006). Like meditation, the middle-age tendency toward bilateralization seems to promote your ability to stay cool under pressure.
There are things you can do to amplify this increased strength. “Our brains are built to roll with the punches,” Strauch writes, “and better — or more carefully cared for — brains roll best.” Studies show multiple ways to build long-term brain health: from healthy eating, exercise and conscious relaxation to active social bonds, challenging work and continuing education. Good advice, it would seem, for a brain at any age.
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Senior study author Frank Hu summed up the results: “This study underscores the importance of weight training in reducing abdominal obesity, especially among the elderly. To maintain a healthy weight and waistline, it is critical to incorporate weight training with aerobic exercise.” This study only looked at men over age 40, and of course more research is needed to see if women over 40 and both men and women in other age groups get similar results. The good news is that there’s already evidence that weight training is good for women, too. Getting stronger and building endurance is good for us at any age and any gender. If you’re concerned that weight training could cause you problems because of existing health conditions, your doctor or a personal trainer can give you recommendations about how to weight train safely.
This research doesn’t mean that we should ditch our cardio routines. Cardiovascular exercise — like walking, running, and swimming — comes with its own set of health benefits. What the study shows is that we need to balance our cardio with weight training. That could mean lifting free weights or using weight machines. It could mean using resistance training, like pushups, squats, and lunges. Just as with diet, a healthy exercise routine is about balance and variety.
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Do you aspire to be successful, comfortable or simply survive?
Successful people will befriend those who they see are going places. People who are not content with simply watching others succeed. They avoid the sideliners and are eager to join the pack that’s “going for the gold.” In Ten Decisions You Need to Make to Get Rich, investor, businessman and author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki notes that one reason people become increasingly more successful is that they spend time with other successful people. He admits that most of his best investments come from his more successful friends, not from his stockbrokers or real estate brokers. He stresses the importance of knowing if a person’s aspirations are to be successful, comfortable or simply survive.
Seeking Out “Glass Half Full” People
Successful people avoid “glass half empty” people. Steve Siebold, author of “How Rich People Think, notes that average people think rich, successful people are snobs; but successful people just want to surround themselves with like-minded people who think positive and have a passion, a fire in the belly to succeed. He goes on to say that the negative money mentality poisoning the middle class is what keeps the successful hanging out with those who have reached their goals. Successful people can’t afford to linger in doom and gloom, which is often misinterpreted by the masses as snobbery.
It’s About Drive and the Acquisition of Knowledge
It’s acceptable to befriend people because of their success. The key is to not use or idolize those you befriend, but to build a sincere relationship based on drive and knowledge. Most successful people don’t brag about their success, they simply talk about more ways to make it and keep it.

 
1.White chocolate
The dark chocolate is a real superfood. Is has heart benefits and boosts your brain. Health benefits of cacao are pretty awesome. It caused with a set of amazing phytonutrients that can increase blood flow to the brain, protect blood vessels, and boost mood and focus. But white chocolate is missing all of these advantages.
 2.Chewing bubble gum
Chewing gum makes our bodies believe that we are eating. Our mouth waters when we chew. But later our body will understand that it was not a real food and gets irritated. Instead of chewing, try to drink more water or eat some healthy snacks like vegetables or fruits.

Your intuition is the single most important tool you have in your dating adventures. Intuition, or what is sometimes referred to as your gut, is “the voice” inside that gives you that intangible information about someone and who they are. More importantly, it provides information about who you are and how you feel with that person.

Your gut communicates to you the vital information that sometimes only your subconscious self can pick up on.  This includes how emotionally and physically safe you feel with a person. Learning how to read your intuition reliably can be difficult. It’s a skill that takes practice. However, with some tuning in, you will begin making relationship decisions from a wiser place inside of you.

Attraction Ratio

This is perhaps the single biggest relationship pit-fall and it involves daters placing physical attraction (which can also include financial prowess and social stature) above how you connect to a partner on more emotional levels (which can include spirituality, values and interests).

Am I saying that you shouldn’t be physically attracted the person who lies before you? Goodness, no! However, there is somewhat of an optimal ratio associated with more satisfying relationships. Those who are more equally attracted (physically and emotionally) to his/her partner usually fair the best.

So, if you’ve been pursuing those whom you are physically attracted to, with little attention to the level of emotional attraction, perhaps you should mix it up and start searching with your heart rather than your eyes.

That Lil’ Ol’ Ex

It is completely normal for your ex to pop into your mind when an anniversary passes or you happen to pass by a place that triggers an old memory. Humans are hard-wired to recall memories when cued by your environment.

Stalking your ex on social media sites, intentionally passing by his/her home or frequently visited spots or fantasizing about what it would feel like if he/she would come waltzing back into your life, this is a whole ‘nother story entirely. If you are one foot out and one foot in a past relationship, your current relationship is doomed for failure. Building a healthy current relationship means you have put in the time and energy to move on from the past.

Old Wounds vs. New Upsets

If you’ve lived long enough you’ve probably been wounded in one way or another. Yes, even those with seemingly “normal” childhoods have wounds. Wounds are caused by hurtful, confusing and/or painful experiences in childhood or adulthood. They leave some sort of imprint on you internally. Examples of such experiences can involve losing a loved one, having difficulty with your parent’s divorce, being bullied or rejected by peers, your first major heartbreak or being cheated on. Wounds not only cause painful memories, they may alter how you move forward in your life and in your relationships.

Fast forward to your adult relationships. Ask yourself, “are there instances in which my partner said or did something relatively mild in nature, but I responded with a high level of emotion?” This may be a sign that you are responding more to an old wound rather than a new upset. If so, you will want to take a closer look at what aspects of your past may be getting in the way of your present (and future) relationships.

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Their stories are “overly-simplified.”
It’s not easy to come up with a lie, even a bad one, so because of the work it entails, language tends to get disturbed and messy. It takes some effort to come up with a lie, so liars try to keep their untrue stories simple and to the point.  They use a lot irrelevant “facts.”
Although the plot of their fallacy is simple, the way they describe it is over the top. I know when I lie to get a “sick” day, I’m not just “sick,” but “I’ve been throwing up for hours and I’m pretty sure it’s food poisoning or maybe not, and maybe I should go to the hospital, but I really don’t want to, so I’m going to wait until noon and figure it out then.” I’m very babbly, even if it’s in an email to someone, as if I need to convince them of the truth by adding all these absurd details, details that I’m likely to forget a day later, therefore messing up my lie, so I have to tell another lie, of course.
to be continue.......

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Walking cheers you up when it’s part (or all) of your commute.
One study found that the longer people spend commuting via car, the worse their psychological well-being. And just adding 10 minutes of walking to that commute can actually improve well being. “A more active commute to work can be associated with the same psychological benefits as things like a raise in income or starting a new relationship,” study author Adam Martin says.
Walking helps you at work.
A walking work station at the office isn’t in reach for everyone—but if your employer is open to it, the benefits could be huge. Researchers found that people who used walking workstations were less bored and stressed, and more satisfied than those who stood or sat at their desks.
Walking boosts your immune system.
A walk a day keeps the doctor away? Perhaps—a daily 30-45 minute walk at a brisk pace can boost the immune system and keep colds at bay, according to research from Appalachian State University. And not only do regular exercisers get sick less often, their colds are all shorter and less severe.
Walking can reduce risk of impotence in men.
Some time spent in sneakers can lead to a better time between the sheets, according to a nine-year study. Researchers found that a brisk two-mile walk each day can reduce men’s risk of impotence, improving blood flow throughout the body (yep, we mean everywhere).
Walking lowers blood pressure.
Just 30 minutes of brisk walking lowers blood pressure—and that holds true whether you walk for 30 minutes at a time or break it up into 10 three-minute walks, a totally do-able goal even for those of us stuck sitting in an office all day.
Walking energizes you.
If you regularly experience fatigue, don’t shy away from lacing up—low intensity exercise won’t wipe you out, says a study from the University of Georgia. In fact, it can increase your energy level by 20 percent and decrease fatigue by 65 percent.

 

A couple months ago, researchers published a study that found the best sex positions for men with bad backs. That was great for men, but didn’t do much for women. Well, good news, ladies, because now it’s our turn. Professor Stuart McGill of the first study has answered the prayers of women with back pain everywhere with a study specifically for us.