Category: Body & Mind

Ways to Build Self-Confidence

Feeling self-confident feels good and there’s no reason why you should lack confidence because you, dear reader, are pretty awesome! I recently stumbled across a list of 63 ways to build self-confidence that are simple and easy to do.

  • Take yourself off auto-pilot – make deliberate decisions on what really matters to you.
    Next time you come up against a risk or a challenge, listen to what you tell yourself and look for a way that that inner dialog can be improved. Ask yourself, “What would make this easier?”
  • Scared of looking silly? You and everyone else. It’s no biggie so don’t let it stop you. Say it with me – “It just doesn’t matter.”
  • Don’t think for a second that you can’t be confident. There are already loads of things you do with natural self-confidence, you just have to notice them and get familiar with how it feels. Look for the things you do where the question of whether you’re confident enough never arises.

    • Read all 63 ways to boost your self confidence at Life Hack.

    Massages can Alter your Immune System

    Here’s another excuse to get a massage (if you needed one). Swedish massages can lower your stress and slightly alter your immune system for the better according to a small research study.

    The researchers, from Cedars-Sinai Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, a Los Angeles-based medical centre, found that the Swedish massages reduced arginine vasopressin, a hormone that causes the stress hormone cortisol to increase. The massages also reduced levels of cortisol itself in the body.

    Study participants also saw their cytokines — proteins released by stimulated white blood cells when danger is present — decrease, indicating the body did not see itself as under attack during the massage.

    Read more

    Organic Farms Beat Industrial Farms

    Researchers in California pitted industrial strawberry farming against organic strawberry farming and the winner was organic. Organic farms were better for the environment and produced noticeably better produce.

    Another reason to buy organic and something that the movie Fresh predicted.

    Among their findings:
    -The organic strawberries had significantly higher antioxidant activity and concentrations of ascorbic acid and phenolic compounds.
    -The organic strawberries had longer shelf life.
    -The organic strawberries had more dry matter, or, “more strawberry in the strawberry.”
    -Anonymous testers, working at times under red light so the fruit color would not bias them, found one variety of organic strawberries was sweeter, had better flavor, and once a white light was turned on, appearance. The testers judged the other two varieties to be similar.
    -The researchers also found the organic soils excelled in a variety of key chemical and biological properties, including carbon sequestration, nitrogen, microbial biomass, enzyme activities, and micronutrients.

    Read more at Science Daily.

    Smoke Weed for Pain Relief

    Smoking marijuana can make life better for those who suffer from chronic neuropathic pain. This new research from McGill University shows that even small amounts of THC can make a noted difference in chronic pain levels. The article also shows how difficult it is to do research on marijuana in today’s political climate, so good on the researchers for sticking to their science!

    The finding comes from what researchers in Montreal believe to be the first outpatient clinical trial of smoked cannabis, involving 21 people with chronic neuropathic pain.

    The results, which included improvements in mood and sleep, were published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
    …

    “Even with this kind of fixed dosing and limited exposure, we were able to show in a blinded fashion that the patients did obtain some analgesia, improvements in sleep quality and on one of the subscales of the quality-of-life measure, we found that the anxiety was mildly improved as well,” Ware said.

    “This may help in developing policy, or improving policy, or improving doctors’ willingness to consider this as an approach when all else has failed.”

    Side-effects — the euphoria associated with smoking pot — were “very, very rare,” Ware said.

    “I think because the doses we used were very low,” he explained.

    The Star has more

    New Approach to Drugs in Toronto

    Toronto has become the first city in the world to include harm reduction in its approach to drug use. At the very least this is a huge symbolic step forward for Canada (particularly since the regressive rulers in Ottawa are attempting failed Reagan-era dug policies) and for North America, since Toronto is the first government on the continent to endorse harm reduction.

    The Vienna Declaration, which slams the criminalization of illicit drugs as a major factor fuelling HIV infection rates, came to the fore during this year’s AIDS conference. Its authors called on policy-makers around the world to refocus their approaches to illegal drugs and HIV-AIDS prevention – especially in light of new statistics that show HIV infection rates have climbed back to 1982 levels, largely thanks to infection in injection-drug users.

    The declaration has thousands of prominent signatories – including doctors, epidemiologists and former heads of state, but few of the governments at whom it’s targeted. On Thursday, council passed a motion to endorse the declaration by a wide margin, 33 votes to 7.

    Read more about it here.

    If you’re in Toronto please vote for a mayoral candidate that supports caring about people so you can keep reading good things about your city.