September-October 2018 (Vol. 14, No. 5)
IN-SHADOW: A Modern Odyssey (Animated Short Film)
Sol Luckman
Now, when I talk about awakening media (i.e., media for awakening humanity to our true potential), this is what I mean.
The illustrations in this beautifully realized animated short rival Frank Miller’s brilliant work in The Dark Knight Returns, yet the storyline isn’t about a self-absorbed superhero with dodgy ethics but the unfolding of humanity’s inherent greatness in the face of a civilization seemingly designed to thwart just such an awakening.
Here are the video’s notes …
Embark on a visionary journey through the fragmented unconscious of the West, and with courage face the Shadow. From Shadow into Light. “No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” —C.G. Jung This film was created with earnest effort, diligence, and sacrifice. It is an urgent call to growth. If you are moved by the content, please SHARE.
So I’m sharing. I hope you’ll feel called to do so as well.
To the awakening!
Copyright © Sol Luckman. All Rights Reserved.
Sol Luckman is a pioneering ink painter whose work has been featured on mainstream book covers and award-winning author whose books include the international bestselling Conscious Healing and its bestselling sequel, Potentiate Your DNA. His visionary novel, Snooze: A Story of Awakening, winner of the 2015 National Indie Excellence Award for New Age Fiction, is the coming-of-age tale of one extraordinary boy’s awakening to the world-changing reality of his dreams. Sol’s latest book, The Angel’s Dictionary: A Spirited Glossary for the Little Devil in You, winner of the 2017 National Indie Excellence Award for Humor, reinvigorates satire to prove that—though we might not be able to change the world—we can at least have a good laugh at it. Then again, maybe laughter can transform the world! Learn more about Sol’s art and writing at www.CrowRising.com.
FEATURED IN THE SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2018 ISSUE OF DNA MONTHLY
1. “Take in the Good” by Rick Hanson, PhD
2. “Study Examines Microdosing Psychedelics to Enhance Focus & Ease Anxiety” by Joe Battaglia
3. “Running, Writing & Deep Play” by Alex Pang, PhD
4. “Altering Human Genetics through Vaccination” by Jon Rappoport
5. “10 Powerful Things That Extend Your Life” by Marco Torres
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1. Take in the Good
Rick Hanson, PhD
Do Positive Experiences “Stick to Your Ribs”?
The Practice:
Take in the good.
Why?
Scientists believe that your brain has a built-in “negativity bias.” In other words, as we evolved over millions of years, dodging sticks and chasing carrots, it was a lot more important to notice, react to, and remember sticks than it was for carrots.
That’s because—in the tough environments in which our ancestors lived—if they missed out on a carrot, they usually had a shot at another one later on. But if they failed to avoid a stick—a predator, a natural hazard, or aggression from others of their species—WHAM, no more chances to pass on their genes.
The negativity bias shows up in lots of ways. For example, studies have found that:
- In a relationship, it typically takes five good interactions to make up for a single bad one.
- People will work much harder to avoid losing $100 than they will work to gain the same amount of money.
- Painful experiences are much more memorable than pleasurable ones. In your own mind, what do you usually think about at the end of the day? The fifty things that went right, or the one that went wrong? Like the guy who cut you off in traffic, what you wish you had said differently to a co-worker, or the one thing on your To Do list that didn’t get done …
In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. That shades “implicit memory”—your underlying expectations, beliefs, action strategies, and mood—in an increasingly negative direction.
And that’s just not fair, since probably most of the facts in your life are positive or neutral. Every day, lots of good things happen, such as a lovely sunset, someone is nice to you, you finish a batch of emails, or you learn something new. And lots of other good things are ongoing aspects of your world (e.g., your children are healthy, life is peaceful in your corner of the planet) or yourself (e.g., personal qualities like determination, sincerity, fairness, kindness).
Besides the sheer injustice of it, acquiring a big pile of negative experiences in implicit memory banks naturally makes a person more anxious, irritable, and blue. Plus it makes it harder to be patient and giving toward others.
In evolution, Mother Nature only cares about passing on genes—by any means necessary. She doesn’t care if we happen to suffer along the way—from subtle worries to intense feelings of sorrow, worthlessness, or anger—or create suffering for others.
The result: a brain that is tilted against lasting contentment and fulfillment.
But you don’t have to accept this bias! By tilting toward the good—“good” in the practical sense of that which brings more happiness to oneself and more helpfulness to others—you merely level the playing field.
You’ll still see the tough parts of life. In fact, you’ll become more able to change them or bear them if you tilt toward the good, since that will help put challenges in perspective, lift your energy and spirits, highlight useful resources, and fill up your own cup so you have more to offer to others.
And now, tilted toward absorbing the good, instead of positive experiences washing through you like water through a sieve, they’ll collect in implicit memory deep down in your brain. In the famous saying, “neurons that fire together, wire together.” The more you get your neurons firing about positive facts, the more they’ll be wiring up positive neural structures.
Taking in the good is a brain-science savvy and psychologically skillful way to improve how you feel, get things done, and treat others. It is among the top five personal growth methods I know. In addition to being good for adults, it’s great for children, helping them to become more resilient, confident, and happy.
Here’s how to take in the good—in three simple steps.
How?
1. Look for good facts, and turn them into good experiences.
Good facts include positive events—like the taste of good coffee or getting an unexpected compliment—and positive aspects of the world and yourself. When you notice something good, let yourself feel good about it.
Try to do this at least a half dozen times a day. There are lots of opportunities to notice good events, and you can always recognize good things about the world and yourself. Each time takes just 30 seconds or so. It’s private; no one needs to know you are taking in the good. You can do it on the fly in daily life, or at special times of reflection, like just before falling asleep (when the brain is especially receptive to new learning).
Notice any reluctance to feeling good. Such as thinking that you don’t deserve to, or that it’s selfish, vain, or even shameful to feel pleasure. Or that if you feel good, you will lower your guard and let bad things happen.
Barriers to feeling good are common and understandable—but they get in the way of you taking in the resources you need to feel better, have more strength, and have more inside to give to others. So acknowledge them to yourself, and then turn your attention back to the good news. Keep opening up to it, breathing and relaxing, letting the good facts affect you.
It’s like sitting down to a meal: don’t just look at it—taste it!
2. Really enjoy the experience.
Most of the time, a good experience is pretty mild, and that’s fine. But try to stay with it for 20 or 30 seconds in a row—instead of getting distracted by something else.
As you can, sense that it is filling your body, becoming a rich experience. As Marc Lewis and other researchers have shown, the longer that something is held in awareness and the more emotionally stimulating it is, the more neurons that fire and thus wire together, and the stronger the trace in memory.
You are not craving or clinging to positive experiences, since that would ultimately lead to tension and disappointment. Actually, you are doing the opposite: by taking them in and filling yourself up with them, you will increasingly feel less fragile or needy inside, and less dependent on external supplies; your happiness and love will become more unconditional, based on an inner fullness rather than on whether the momentary facts in your life happen to be good ones.
3. Intend and sense that the good experience is sinking into you.
People do this in different ways. Some feel it in their body like a warm glow spreading through their chest like the warmth of a cup of hot cocoa on a cold wintry day. Others visualize things like a golden syrup sinking down inside, bringing good feelings and soothing old places of hurt, filling in old holes of loss or yearning; a child might imagine a jewel going into a treasure chest in her heart. And some might simply know conceptually, that while this good experience is held in awareness, its neurons are firing busily away, and gradually wiring together.
* * *
Any single time you do this will make only a little difference. But over time those little differences will add up, gradually weaving positive experiences into the fabric of your brain and your self.
Copyright © Rick Hanson. All Rights Reserved.
Rick Hanson, PhD, is a psychologist, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and New York Times best-selling author. His books are available in 26 languages and include Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nuture. He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin and has numerous audio programs. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA and founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, he’s been an invited speaker at NASA, Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, and other major universities, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. His work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, and NPR, and he offers the free Just One Thing newsletter with over 120,000 subscribers, plus the online Foundations of Well-Being program in positive neuroplasticity that anyone with financial need can do for free. For more information visit https://www.rickhanson.net.
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2. Study Examines Microdosing Psychedelics to Enhance Focus & Ease Anxiety
Joe Battaglia, PreventDisease.com
Microdosing is the act of consuming sub-perceptual amounts of psychedelics like LSD or psilocybin mushrooms. A new study from the University of Toronto reveals fascinating insights into how and why people use small doses of psychedelics for therapeutic effects.
Psychedelics are substances with the ability to expand human awareness beyond our normal modes of perception. Some may be the most amazing substances known to humanity, so potent that just 1/10,000th of a gram can send one on a journey beyond time and space.
Microdosing produces a enough clarity to quell anxiety, boost mood, or improve focus and creativity, according to anecdotal reports. The practice has become well known after the recent publication of a book on psychedelics by bestselling author Michael Pollan.
Because psychedelics are illegal in many jurisdictions, microdosing is now slowly becoming a subject of scientific investigation.
While the modern history of psychedelics reaches back to the 1950s, interest in microdosing saw a major revitalization with the publishing of Dr. James Fadiman’s The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys in 2011.
More researchers are accepting the power of psychedelics, which have unprecedented potential to treat disease and psychological trauma, but most of all, to reorganize the brain and shift thought patterns.
According to study co-author Thomas Anderson, it is the first study of its kind.
Anderson is a PhD candidate and cognitive neuroscientist with the Regulatory and Affective Dynamics (RAD) Lab of Norman Farb, an assistant professor of psychology at U of T Mississauga. Anderson’s main research focuses on attention and meta-awareness, but his interest in the study of microdosing was sparked by a professional literature review group where he noticed there were plenty of anecdotal reports but a dearth of scientific research into the practice.
While the psychedelic state has been previously compared with dreaming, the opposite effect has been observed in the brain network from which we get our sense of “self” (called the default mode network or ego-system). Put simply, while activity became “louder” in the emotion system, it became more disjointed and thus “quieter” in the ego system.
“There’s currently a renaissance going on in psychedelic research with pilot trials and promising studies of full-dose MDMA (ecstasy) use for post-traumatic stress disorder and of psilocybin use within healthy populations or to treat depression and end-of-life anxiety,” says Anderson. “There hasn’t been the same research focus on microdosing. We didn’t have answers to the most basic epidemiological questions—who is doing this and what are they doing?”
In 2017, Anderson launched a collaborative investigation with Rotem Petranker, a graduate student studying social psychology at York University, U of T Scarborough psychology PhD student Le-Ahn Dinh-Williams and a team of psychiatrists from Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Anderson and Petranker targeted microdosing communities on Reddit and other social media channels with an anonymous online survey that queried participants about the quantity and frequency of their psychedelic use, reasons for microdosing, effect on mood, focus and creativity, and the benefits and drawbacks of the practice.
The survey, which ran from September to November of 2017, drew more than 1,390 initial responses, with 909 respondents completing all questions. Two-thirds of the group were practicing microdosers or had some past experience.
“We wanted to ensure the results produced a good basis for future psychedelic science,” Anderson says.
The data yielded interesting results, including important information about how much of the drug participants were taking, which had previously been unknown.
“Typical doses aren’t well established,” says Anderson. “We think it’s about 10 mcg or one-tenth of an LSD tab, or 0.2 grams of dried mushrooms. Those amounts are close to what participants reported in our data.”
The data also revealed information about frequency of use. Most of the microdosers reported taking the drug once every three days, while a small group microdosed once a week.
Qualitative data from the survey revealed that microdosers reported positive effects of the practice, including migraine reduction, improved focus and productivity, and better connection with others. In quantitative results, microdosers scored lower than non-microdosing respondents on negative emotionality and dysfunctional attitude.
Microdosing respondents also reported a number of drawbacks. “The most prevalently reported drawback was not an outcome of microdosing, but instead dealt with illegality, stigma and substance unreliability,” says Anderson. “Users engage in black market criminalized activities to obtain psychedelics. If you’re buying what your dealer says is LSD, it could very well be something else.”
Anderson adds a standard caveat about safety. “We wouldn’t suggest that people microdose, but if they are going to, they should use Erlich reagent (a drug testing solution) to ensure they are not getting something other than LSD.”
Dose accuracy was another issue. “With microdoses, there should be no ‘trip’ and no hallucinations,” says Anderson. “The idea is to enhance something about one’s daily activities, but it can be very difficult to divide a 1/2cm square of LSD blotting paper into 10 equal doses. The LSD might not be evenly distributed on the square and a microdoser could accidentally ‘trip’ by taking too much or not taking enough.”
Anderson and Petranker recently presented their findings at the Beyond Psychedelics conference in Prague, which drew researchers, physicians, mental health practitioners, policy-makers, and technology and business participants from around the globe. The team will publish results from the survey in three upcoming research papers that will cover the survey results, psychiatric diagnosis analysis, and the benefits and drawbacks of microdosing.
“The goal of the study was to create a foundation that could support future work in this area, so I’m really excited about what these results can offer future research,” says Anderson. “The benefits and drawbacks data will help ensure we can ask meaningful questions about what participants are reporting. Our future research will involve running lab-based, randomized-control trials where psychedelics are administered in controlled environments. This will help us to better characterize the therapeutic and cognitive-enhancing effects of psychedelics in very small doses.”
The study is being supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Copyright © PreventDisease.com. All Rights Reserved.
This article, republished with permission, originally appeared here.
Joe Battaglia is a writer for PreventDisease.com.
3. Running, Writing & Deep Play
Alex Pang, PhD
Outside Online has a new article, “Eight of Our Favorite Writers on Why They Run.” They’re not simply writers who also happen to enjoy a jog; all of them see a connection between running and writing. For example, here’s nonfiction writer Peter Hessler:
I think the mentality is somewhat similar, this sort of persistence-endurance.
I always go into a piece of writing with a plan, an idea of what I want to do, but there are things that come to me as I’m working that I didn’t expect, and I have to be loose and relaxed enough to let those things in. I notice that when I run, my mind is in that place, this sort of very free-flowing, unstructured, unfocused place. For me, it’s part of the whole mental space that’s necessary to write.
Here’s Joyce Carol Oates:
Ideally, the runner who’s a writer is running through the land- and cityscapes of her fiction, like a ghost in a real setting.
The structural problems I set for myself in writing, in a long, snarled, frustrating, and sometimes despairing morning of work, for instance, I can usually unsnarl by running in the afternoon.
They generally don’t try to think about problems when they’re running, but do find it’s useful for jogging (as it were) new ideas or giving their subconscious space to think. As Poet Laureate emeritus Kay Ryan says, “Consciously thinking about what I’ll write is something I rarely do, although I may do some revising of poems in my head when I’m running.” Wired editor Nicholas Thompson says,
I do notice that a lot of the best thinking I get done, or ideas generation, or problem solving, happens when I’m running and trying to focus on stuff outside of my head … I think probably for most things I’ve written or edited, there’s been a key insight that came while I was running.
Running also teaches a kind of endurance that’s useful to writers. Here’s Kay Ryan again:
Both can be hard and unpleasant at times. But of the two, writing is much harder. When you go out for a run, you never fail, but you often fail when you set out to write a poem, even if you try your hardest.
This is not to say that all writers are runners, or vice versa. To be honest, I really dislike running. I find it boring and uncomfortable, and far prefer a long walk or hike or bike ride, or a couple circuits with the weight machines.
But even if you don’t run, the article is still worthwhile because it gives a sense of how for them, running is a kind of deep play, and how deep play is important for their literary lives.
I argue at length in my book Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less that deep play helps people be more creative, and often seems to extend their creative careers. What separates deep play from something that’s merely diverting or distracting? What makes an activity compelling and interesting, rather than an interruption of their work?
For one thing, deep play provides many of the same psychological rewards and satisfactions as their work, but without the frustrations. For Winston Churchill, painting was deep play because painting was like politics: it required a clear vision and decisive action, but you didn’t have the Labour party standing over your shoulder, saying that the trees were the wrong color.
Deep play is psychologically restorative because it offers those rewards in new and refreshing contexts. For many scientists who are rock climbers or mountai climbers, climbing is rewarding because it offers some of the same challenges as science, and demands concentration and attention; but unlike science, it’s very physically challenging, and offers quick, decisive rewards—at the end of the day you reach the summit or you don’t.
Deep play offers opportunities for flow, mastery, and control. It’s deeply absorbing, and challenging enough to require time to conquer. Things that are too easy or too difficult, that don’t have open-ended opportunities for improvement, tend to get abandoned.
Finally, deep play has some deeply personal or autobiographical dimension that connects them to family, or their homeland, or their younger selves. Biophysicist Britton Chance, for example, was an avid sailor from childhood, and even as a professor he sailed competitively, even winning a gold medal in the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki.
It’s important to note that deep play isn’t really an inherent property of some hobbies but not others. What I’ll find absorbing and engaging depends on my intellectual interests, the work I do, and my background. What all forms of deep play have in common is that they’re a break from work that can otherwise be unhealthily consuming, but they also sustain a person’s ability to work. For some people, running is deep play; for others, it can be sailing, or gardening, or swimming, or painting (or other things).
In today’s world, we often don’t think of hobbies as being very important (side gigs and driving for Uber don’t count). But in fact, finding your own deep play is important for having a more creative life.
Copyright © Alex Pang. All Rights Reserved.
Alex Pang, PhD, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, has held fellowships at Microsoft Research Cambridge, the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, UCBerkeley, and Williams College. Visit his website at http://www.askpang.com.
4. Altering Human Genetics through Vaccination
Jon Rappoport
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has launched efforts to create a vaccine that would protect people from most flu strains, all at once, with a single shot.
Over the years, I’ve written many articles refuting claims that vaccines are safe and effective, but we’ll put all that aside for the moment and follow the bouncing ball.
Massachusetts Senator and big spender, Ed Markey, has introduced a bill that would shovel no less than a billion dollars toward the universal flu-vaccine project.
Here is a sentence from an NIAID press release that mentions one of several research approaches:
“NIAID Vaccine Research Center scientists have initiated Phase 1/2 studies of a universal flu vaccine strategy that includes an investigational DNA-based vaccine (called a DNA ‘prime’) …”
This is quite troubling, if you know what the phrase “DNA vaccine” means. It refers to what the experts are touting as the next generation of immunizations.
Instead of injecting a piece of a virus into a person, in order to stimulate the immune system, synthesized genes would be shot into the body. This isn’t traditional vaccination anymore. It’s gene therapy.
In any such method, where genes are edited, deleted, added, no matter what the pros say, there are always “unintended consequences,” to use their polite phrase. The ripple effects scramble the genetic structure in numerous unknown ways.
Here is the inconvenient truth about DNA vaccines—
They will permanently alter your DNA.
The reference is the New York Times, 3/15/15, “Protection Without a Vaccine.” It describes the frontier of research—the use of synthetic genes to “protect against disease,” while changing the genetic makeup of humans. This is not science fiction:
“By delivering synthetic genes into the muscles of the [experimental] monkeys, the scientists are essentially re-engineering the animals to resist disease.”
“’The sky’s the limit,’ said Michael Farzan, an immunologist at Scripps and lead author of the new study.”
“The first human trial based on this strategy—called immunoprophylaxis by gene transfer, or I.G.T.—is underway, and several new ones are planned.” [That was three years ago.]
“I.G.T. is altogether different from traditional vaccination. It is instead a form of gene therapy. Scientists isolate the genes that produce powerful antibodies against certain diseases and then synthesize artificial versions. The genes are placed into viruses and injected into human tissue, usually muscle.”
Here is the punchline: “The viruses invade human cells with their DNA payloads, and the synthetic gene is incorporated into the recipient’s own DNA. If all goes well, the new genes instruct the cells to begin manufacturing powerful antibodies.”
Read that again: “the synthetic gene is incorporated into the recipient’s own DNA.”
Alteration of the human genetic makeup.
Not just a “visit.” Permanent residence. And once a person’s DNA is changed, he will live with that change—and all the ripple effects in his genetic makeup—for the rest of his life.
The Times article taps Dr. David Baltimore for an opinion:
“Still, Dr. Baltimore says that he envisions that some people might be leery of a vaccination strategy that means altering their own DNA, even if it prevents a potentially fatal disease.”
Yes, some people might be leery. If they have two or three working brain cells.
This is genetic roulette with a loaded gun. Anyone and everyone on Earth injected with a DNA vaccine will undergo permanent and unknown genetic changes …
And the further implications are clear. Vaccines can be used as a cover for the injections of any and all genes, whose actual purpose is re-engineering humans in far-reaching ways.
The emergence of this Frankenstein technology is paralleled by a shrill push to mandate vaccines, across the board, for both children and adults. The pressure and propaganda are planet-wide.
The freedom and the right to refuse vaccines has always been vital. It is more vital than ever now.
It means the right to preserve your inherent DNA.
Copyright © Jon Rappoport. All Rights Reserved.
The author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit from the Matrix and Power Outside the Matrix, Jon Rappoport was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for thirty years, writing articles on politics, medicine and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com. To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit from the Matrix, click here.
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5. 10 Powerful Things That Extend Your Life
Marco Torres, PreventDisease.com
Differences in lifestyle patterns rather than mortality or health outcomes appear to have immense research potential in gauging life expectancy. How do patterns in thought, actions, supplements, and diet interact, synergize, or interfere with one another? Here’s a look at 10 powerful things that influence our aging processes.
By examining how chronological age lines up with biological age across the population, researchers are starting to pin down how these two measures should sync up—and what it means for how long we have left when they don’t.
1. Love: Theories about love’s purpose range from the biologically practical to the biologically complicated. In one study, men who are married or in close relationships have 7% lower mortality than singles. The number is 4% for women. These numbers correspond to less than a year of life expectancy. A different study finds loneliness increases mortality by 50%, corresponding to almost 5 years of life. Choosing a life partner may be one of the most important decisions we can make. Love also increases joy and happiness which can make our hearts healthier, our immune systems stronger, and our lives longer through enhancements of our cellular structure. With more love between couples often comes more sex which also promotes heart health and balances hormone levels.
2. Empowerment: Staying employed is worth up to 14 years, and it’s often more about being needed than making money. Trumping general intelligence, previous academic achievement and personality, hope “uniquely predicts objective academic achievement,” showed a three-year longitudinal study out of the University of Manchester. A study in elementary schools in Hawaii has found that a focused program to build social, emotional and character skills resulted in significantly improved overall quality of education, as evaluated by teachers, parents and students. Specific methods of internal shifting can lead to incredible self-empowerment which changes the way we experience every event in our lives.
3. Natural Anti-inflammatories: Daily supplements of curcumin combined with diet and exercise strategies have been found to be associated with more than a 60% reduction in triglyceride levels. It inhibits inflammatory reactions, has anti-diabetic effects, and reduces cholesterol among other powerful health effects. Curcumin exerts anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects. Omega-3s are another powerful anti-inflammatory. They convert into hormone-like substances that decrease inflammation and pain. According to Dr. Alfred D. Steinberg, an arthritis expert at the National Institute of Health, fish oil is an anti-inflammatory agent which acts directly on the immune system by suppressing 40 to 55 percent of the release of cytokines, compounds known to destroy joints. Many other studies also demonstrate that eating moderate amounts of fish or taking fish oil reduces pain and inflammation.
4. High Fiber and Fermented Foods: Our bowel movements are key predictors to our well-being and fiber is truly a proxy for healthy gut flora. Health care of the future may include personalized diagnosis of an individual’s “microbiome” to determine what prebiotics or probiotics are needed to provide balance. Your gut bacteria can reveal whether you suffer from many different diseases such as diabetes and many others. Increased intakes of fermented foods are associated with significantly reduced risks of skin conditions, digestive problems and even autoimmune disease. The potential health benefits of fermented foods like doenjang, chungkookjang, kimchi, kombucha, miso, tempeh, pickles, fermented seafood, makgeolli, and beer may be linked directly to the ingestion of live microorganisms which all have tremendous benefits on the overall functioning of the human body as we age.
5. Meditation: Almost every disease in the body is initiated or aggravated by high cortisol levels which are elevated in people who lack the ability to calm their thoughts and minds. Regular meditation effectively supports mental, emotional and physical health in numerous tangible ways. In building upon this strong body of evidence, researchers are continuing to deepen our understanding of the profound and inspirational benefits of regular meditation practice in everyday life. The data itself is encouraging. Some studies link meditation to enhanced telomerase activity. Most of scientific studies on meditation have shown it benefits our cardiovascular and mental health and wellness. More than 350 peer-reviewed research studies on the Transcendental Meditation technique have been published in over 160 scientific journals.
6. Intermittent fasting: Intermittent fasting allows the body to use fat as its primary source of energy instead of sugar and there are many benefits. Intermittent fasting extends lifespan and lowers mortality. According to MIT biologists, age-related loss of stem cell function can be reversed by a 24-hour fast. Some studies show that after periods of fasting, insulin becomes more effective in telling cells to take up glucose from blood. Intermittent fasting improves the immune system because it reduces free radical damage, regulates inflammatory conditions in the body and starves off cancer cell formation.
7. Interval Training: One of the most efficient paths towards cardiovascular fitness is interval training. There is now enough documentation to suggest that it does benefit all-cause mortality. By recruiting new muscle fibers and increasing the body’s ability to use fuel, interval training potentially lowers the risk of metabolic syndrome. This type of vigorous exercise cuts deep belly fat and fat around the waist. After interval training, the amount of fat burned in an hour of continuous moderate cycling increased by 36 percent, said Jason L. Talanian, the lead author of the study and an exercise scientist at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Cardiovascular fitness—the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen to working muscles—improved by 13 percent. Results were independent from any type of special dieting or food plans.
8. NAC and Glutathione: N-acetylcysteine is converted by the body into an amino acid called cysteine. Cysteine also helps synthesize glutathione, one of the body’s most important natural antioxidants and detoxifiers of chemicals into less harmful compounds. Glutathione is known to aid in the transport of nutrients to lymphocytes and phagocytes, two major classes of immune cells, and to protect cell membranes. Researchers found that mushrooms have high amounts of glutathione known for immune system boosting properties and anti-cancer capabilities. NAC can protect against a wide range of health problems and the science backs up the claim. In one study there was a 30% increase in lifespan of mice. This powerful metabolite is also used against environmental pollutants including carbon monoxide, chloroform, urethanes, herbicides, pesticides, cancer drugs. In addition, it is used as a hangover remedy, as a way to reduce damage due to certain X-ray dyes, and for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
9. Decreasing Calories: Calorie restriction leads scientists to molecular pathways that slow aging and improve health. Organisms from yeast to rodents to humans all benefit from cutting calories. Restricting calories can double or even triple lifespan. About 30 percent of the animals on calorie restriction diets die at an advanced age without any diseases normally related to aging. The less you eat the longer you will live. Studies have shown how the lifespan of people in certain cultures increased due to their diets. One of the primary effects of aging is a slower metabolism. The younger your body is, the faster and more efficient your metabolism. The less you eat, the less toll it takes on your digestive system. Aware of the profound influence of calorie restriction on animals, some people are cutting their calorie intake by 25 percent or more in hopes of lengthening lifespan.
10. Vitamin D: In the absence of vitamin D from sunlight, disease increases more than 1000 percent. Vitamin D is lacking in some 70 percent of American children. Data from a systematic review of almost 200 population-based studies shows that more than a third of populations worldwide may suffer from low levels of vitamin D. Researchers have discovered that it’s active in many tissues and cells besides bone and controls an enormous number of genes, including some associated with cancers, autoimmune disease, and infection. It’s been known that vitamin D can prevent that genetic damage. The best way to get vitamin D is getting out in the sun and stop lathering on sunscreen. Researchers at the University of Leeds suggest that people with very pale skin may be unable to spend enough time in the sun to make the amount of vitamin D the body needs—while also avoiding sunburn. So it’s important to have your vitamin D levels assessed by a qualified health practitioner who can order the appropriate tests.
Copyright © PreventDisease.com. All Rights Reserved.
This article, republished with permission, originally appeared here.
Marco Torres is a research specialist, writer and consumer advocate for healthy lifestyles. He holds degrees in Public Health and Environmental Science and is a professional speaker on topics such as disease prevention, environmental toxins and health policy.
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Mission. DNA Monthly seeks to empower readers with vital information relative to their genetic endowment: DNA. This information may range from generalized articles on DNA to news releases on breakthrough genetic research to educational materials devoted to specific DNA activation techniques and concepts. DNA Monthly is also committed to sharing articles and videos that promote healing, transformation, and awakening.
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