Neuroscientists have provided new evidence that coffee, tea (to a lesser extent) and chocolate contribute to the healing of the brain and make it more flexible. In 2019, several amazing scientific studies were presented that were definitely worth a read.

To begin with, we analyzed the results of a joint study by the National Institute of Aging and Johns Hopkins University, published in January in the journal Neurochemical Research. Scientists, in particular, concluded that the organic compounds of methylxanthines in tea, coffee and dark chocolate (cocoa) “affect the activity of neural networks, promote stable cognitive activity and protect neurons from dysfunction and death due to stroke, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease".

In the same study, it was found that xanthine derivatives (chemicals produced when caffeine enters the brain) "can have a beneficial effect on brain function."

Secondly, a meta-analysis of 11 studies of the effects of coffee on brain health published in the World Journal of Surgical Oncology showed that coffee, cocoa and tea reduce the risk of developing not only Alzheimer's disease, but also brain cancer.

Finally, a revolutionary study by Okayama University in Japan “showed that the components of CA and CGA coffee enhance the antioxidant properties of glial cells and prevent rotenone-induced neuronal degeneration both in the brain and in the Auerbach plexus.”

Simply put, caffeine makes your brain more flexible and resilient. If you want to maintain normal brain function, then do not give up the use of coffee, tea and cocoa.

The right dose?

Studies have shown that the daily dose of coffee can be 6-8 cups, and preferably up to 2 hours of the day, so as not to interfere with night sleep.

If this seems to you too much, replace 1-2 cups of coffee with 30 grams of dark chocolate. It is worth noting that drinking coffee and tea is recommended without the addition of sugar. In any case, you will perfectly charge your brain.

Leaning forward can be very relaxing and bending over becomes inevitable in our daily lives. However, it’s important that you do it right – you can pull your lower back, especially if your back thighs are poorly stretched.

There are right and wrong ways to lean forward and bend over. To protect your lower back, you need to perform the slopes correctly. For this you need to pay close attention to the mechanics of your body. The key muscles that you need to pay attention to are the muscles of the back of the thigh, especially their intersection with the pelvis.

Muscles of the posterior thigh are semi-membranous and semi-tendon. Here is the basic anatomy of leaning forward: to stretch the muscles of the back of the thigh, we stretch (straighten) the knees and bend in the hips, while bending the stomach on the hips.

Working while leaned forward with straight legs, head-to-knee is the perfect way to stretch the hamstring.

The problem is that when the muscles of the back of the thigh reach the limit of their flexibility, you begin to bend either by flexing your knees or by flexing your hip joints. The extension in the hip joints means that while sitting on the floor, your short muscles of the back of the thigh will pull the ischial tubercles towards the back of the knee. Because of this, the pelvis goes back and the spine gets bent. The natural deflection in the lumbar region disappears. Rounding of the spine is a big no and you must avoid it.

If you lean forward and the muscles of the back of your thigh are not stretched, you can seriously damage the intervertebral discs or ligaments. Compression will be subjected to internal organs, such as heart, lungs and digestive organs. The tighter your hips are, the more likely you are to compress your internal organs.

Each of us knows someone who constantly complains about everything. Whether there is really a problem or not, these people will always find a reason to victimize themselves and complain to someone about it. Other times, we may be the ones who complain about everything.

There is ample evidence that when complaining becomes a habit, the consequences can be felt on health. Here are the effects of this irritating behavior that we have or that some people around us have on our brain and its well-being.

Continually giving voice to negative thoughts and emotions has health consequences that can also have serious physiological impacts – it profoundly affects certain brain functions and psychophysical well-being.

In the long run, negative thoughts completely replace positive thoughts: this has consequences not only on social relations, but also on the functioning of the brain itself. It is as if each time we complain, the brain takes this state of mind as a reference to react to similar future situations.

Complaints can also have a direct impact on the capacity of memory – some magnetic resonances have recorded a narrowing of the hippocampus in people accustomed to complaining. This implies that the area of ​​the brain is affected which regulates many functions cognitive, including memory. A smaller size of the hippocampus leads to poorer memory and reduced ability to adapt to new situations.

When negative feelings are more important than positive feelings, more cortisol is released into the body: it is a hormone responsible for insomnia, depression, metabolic problems and heart disease. It is no coincidence that cortisol is also called "stress hormone".

So, if you have people around you who complain all day long, or if you've fallen into this vicious circle, just take your life in your hands and give it that touch of positivity that can turn things around for you! There’s always a reason to be optimistic.

The ketogenic diet is high in fat (90% of calories) and low in carbohydrates (2% of calories) and protein (8% of calories).  It was mainly used to treat epilepsy in children because with little carbohydrate in the blood, the liver transforms fat into ketone bodies as an alternative source of energy. As a result, it significantly modifies the metabolism of the brain, resulting in a decrease in seizures.

Several studies show, which is not surprising, that this diet makes the body more effective at burning fat – others show that it can cause significant reductions in blood glucose and insulin levels. A few studies also highlight that it can be beneficial for brain chemistry in other ways. It has been studied for its ability to help people lose weight, control diabetes and even reverse the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Preliminary research also shows that a ketogenic diet can stop cancer progression, inhibit metastasis and kill cancer cells. However, research to date has been limited mainly to a few animal studies. In human cancer patients, all cancers combined, the results showed both positive and mostly negative results. According to Professor Thomas Seyfried of Boston College, one of the main champions of the ketogenic diet against cancer, “there are still some defects to correct".

You must also choose your fat wisely, because with cancer, there is ample evidence that saturated fats can increase metastasis and spread cancer.

Experience shows me that during a cancer, the progression of the tumors is very often either regressed, stopped or slowed, compared to the period before it establishes. The side effects of conventional treatments are often mitigated with the help of a keto diet regime. You can make certain adjustments to the diet on a case-by-case basis for the chemotherapy days to minimize adverse effects. The energy boost is impressive – many are able to re-engage in sport or work while undergoing treatments.

128 chemical residues, including 47 carcinogenic substances would be absorbed by a child of ten years in a day – the study of the Future Generations Association points out the dangers of the pesticides, food additives and plastic residues that we absorb daily.

Pesticides

These products sprayed in the fields or put on stored fruits and vegetables are often found on our plates. Washing fruits and vegetables before eating does not guarantee their disappearance – some are resistant to water. A study has shown that washing with hot water is usually more effective than cold water, especially if you rub the vegetable with a cloth after.

Food additives

These are used by agri-food industries to preserve foods or give them a particular texture, taste or color. Additives should be mentioned in the ingredients on the package. By carefully looking at the composition of products, we can avoid E100 (dyes), E200 (preservatives), E300 (anti-oxygen agents) and E400 (texture agents).

Dioxins and PCBs

Dioxins are diffused into the environment in the form of particles and can be found all along the food chain. They are mostly found in water, which explains why the most contaminated food products are packaged fish.

Phthalates and Bisphenol A

To avoid phthalates, plasticizers are widely used for food packaging. We must look at the codification of plastics – plastics that are classified as 3 are to be avoided. For baby bottles and milk powders, you should prefer cardboard packaging and glass bottles. It is better not to heat the trays or plastic cutlery in the microwave.

The sources of chemical hazards in food can be divided into:

1. Naturally occurring chemical hazards such as mycotoxins, bacterial toxins, algal poisons, plant toxins and animal toxins
2. Chemical hazards caused by environmental pollution, such as heavy metals and organic matter in the environment
3. Chemicals that are intentionally added, such as preservatives, nutritional supplements, pigments, etc.
4. Chemicals that are not intended to be added, such as chemicals in agriculture, chemicals used in aquaculture, chemical substances used in the process of food production enterprises, etc.
5. Chemical hazards from food processing
6. Chemical hazards from containers, processing equipment and packaging materials
7. Chemical hazards caused by radioactive contamination

Many people around the world are turning away from meat – it’s the primary reason for the rise of alternative GMO food products aimed at cutting down industrial scale meat production.

One of these companies called The Impossible Burger stood out for successfully making a burger out of Genetically Modified or GMO Soy. Most people soon started seeing it as a healthier alternative to regular beef.

Only recently, scientific reports claimed that this product is significantly linked to organ damage in animals when tested in the labs. The product contains significantly high levels of Monsato’s Glyphosate, a substance that is known to be a potent carcinogen. A surprisingly high concentration of this substance can pose severe negative health effects on consumers.

This recent report has raised several concerns among people – are GMO based products good or bad? Let's try to understand this issue impartially.

It is precisely the lack of objectivity in this controversial topic. Today, in many countries of the world, the concept of GMO has started to become synonymous to the "products that cause tumors and mutations". GMOs are being criticized for various reasons – they are tasteless, unsafe and threaten the nutritional value for the entire population.

GMOs are genetically modified organisms i.e. modified using genetic engineering methods. This concept in the narrow sense applies to plants. In the past, various breeders have achieved plant benefits using a variety of GMO tricks. These included grafting the cuttings of some trees to others or the choice for sowing seeds with only certain qualities. After that, it was necessary to wait a long time for the results. Today, with advanced technology in genetics the right gene can be moved to the right place and we can quickly get what we want.

Apparently, we’ll have to wait to see to what extent GMO based food products penetrate food industry around the world. For now, it’s one of the most controversial subjects on record.

We've all got two wolves in us, a good one and a bad, and they both want to eat. The best I can tell we just gotta feed that good one a little more than the other one.

Happiness is an emotional response to an outcome. If I win, I will be happy. If I don't, I won't. It's an if then, cause and effect, quid pro quo standard that we cannot sustain because we immediately raise it every time we attain it. You see happiness, happiness demands a certain outcome, it is result reliant. And I say, if happiness is what you're after, then you're going to be let down frequently and you're going to be unhappy much of your time.

Joy though, joy's a different thing, it's something else. Joy is not a choice, it's not a response to some result, it's a constant. Joy is the feeling that we have from doing what we are fashioned to do no matter the outcome. Now personally, as an actor, I started enjoying my work and literally being more happy when I stopped trying to make the daily labor a means to a certain end.

The easiest way to dissect success is through gratitude. Giving thanks for that which we do have for what is working. Appreciating the simple things we sometimes take for granted. We give thanks for these things and that gratitude reciprocates, creating more to be thankful for. It's really simple and it works. 

I'm not saying be in denial of your failures. No, we can learn from them too, but only if we look at them constructive as a means to reveal what we are good at, what we can get better at, what we do succeed at.

life's a verb. We try our best. We don't always do our best. And since we are the architects of our own lives, let's study the habits, the practices, the routines that we have that lead to and feed our success, our joy, our honest pain, our laughter, our earned tears. Let's dissect that and give thanks for those things. And when we do that, guess what happens? We get better at them and we have more to dissect. It's a get rich quick on the internet, riches, 15 minutes of fame world that we live in and we see it every day, but we all want to succeed, right? 

So the question that we've got to ask ourselves is what success is to us? What success is to you? Is it more money? That's fine. I've got nothing against money. Maybe it's a healthy family, maybe it's a happy marriage, maybe it's to help others, to be famous, to be spiritually sound, to leave the world a little bit better place than you found it. Continue to ask yourself that question. Now your answer may change over time and that's fine. But do yourself this favor. Whatever your answer is, don't choose anything that will jeopardize soul. Prioritize who you are, who you want to be, and don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character. Don't drink the Koolaid man, it tastes sweet, but you will get cavities tomorrow. Life is not a popularity contest.

Be brave. Take the Hill. But first answer that question. What's my Hill? Well, for me it's a measurement of a five things. We got fatherhood, we got being a good husband, we got my health, mind body and spirit, we got career and we have friendships. These are what's important to me in my life right now. Because I want to keep all five in healthy shape and I know that if I don't take care of them, if I don't keep up maintenance on them, one of them is going to get weak. It's gonna dip too deep into the debit section. It's going to go bankrupt, it's going to get sick, die.

So first we have to define success for ourselves and then we have to put in the work to maintain it. Take that daily tally, tend our garden, keep the things that are important to us in good shape. Defining ourselves by what we are not is the first step that leads us to really know who we are. 

You know that group of friends that you hang out with that it really might not bring out the best in, you know they, they gossip too much or that kind of shady. They really aren't going to be there for you in a pinch. Or how about that bar that we keep going to that we always seem to have the worst hangover from. Or that computer screen right? That computer screen that keeps giving us an excuse not to get out of the house and engage with the world and get some real human interaction. Or how about that food that we keep eating and stuff that tastes so good going down, it makes us feel like crap the next week, and we feel lethargic and we keep putting on weight.

Well, those people, those places, those things, stop giving them your time and energy. Just don't go there. I mean put them down and when you do this, when you do put them down, when you quit, go in there and you quit giving them your time, you inadvertently find yourself spending more time and in more places that are healthy for you that bring you more joy. 

Why? Because you just eliminated the who's, the where's, the what's, the when's that were keeping you from your identity. Trust me, too many options, I promise you, the too many options will make a tyrant of us all. So get rid of the excess, the wasted time. Decrease your options. If you do this, you will have accidentally almost innocently put in front of you what is important to you, by process of elimination. Knowing who we are is hard. It's hard. Give yourself a break. Eliminate who you are, not first and you're going to find yourself where you need to be. 

Make voluntary obligations. I'm talking about the ones that we make with ourselves, with our God, with our own consciousness. I'm talking about the you versus you obligations. We have to have them. These are not societal laws and expectations that we acknowledge and endow for anyone other than ourselves. These are faith based obligations that we make on our own. These are not the lowered insurance rates for a good driving record. You will not be fined and put in jail if you do not gratify these obligations I speak of. No one else covers these, but you. They are your secrets with yourself, your own private counsel, personal protocols. And while nobody throws you a party, when you abide by them, no one's going to arrest you when you break them either, except yourself. And honest man's pillow is his peace of mind. And when you lay down on that pillow at night, no matter who's in your bed, we all sleep alone. 

These are your personal Jimminy crickets, and there are not enough cops in the entire world to police them. It's on you. It's on you. We do our best when our destinations are beyond the measurement, when our reach continually exceeds our grasp and when we have immortal finish lines. And when we do this, the race is never over. The journey has no port. The adventure never ends because we are always on the way. So do this, do this, and let them, let somebody else come up and tap you on the shoulder and say, Hey, you scored. Let them run up and tap you on the shoulder and say, man, you won. Let them come tell you, you can go home now. Let them say, I love you too. Let them say thank you. Take the lid off the manmade roots that we put above ourselves and always play like an underdog.

I always say to people, you get the first three years right, you can relax. If you don't get the first three years right you will be practicing remedy parenting for decades.

Parents are taught not to pick up their kids when they're crying. Let them sleep it out.

What lesson do they get? Their emotions don't matter.

Children need to attach.

They need to connect with somebody, cause without that connection, they don't survive. In the hunter gatherer bands where human beings evolved, those attachments were with adults. And not just one adult or two adults, but with a whole set of nurturing adults.

And as that happens, the kids push away from the parents because they're more minded to belong to the peer group, which has different values from the parents. And the kid's brain can't handle that competition, so the brain of the child will actually choose the peer group over the parent group. And where that goes, you can see on Facebook and you can see it in the teenage gangs and you can see it in the increasing frustration of parents who've lost a part of parent. These parents think that that part of parent comes from the fact that they have the responsibility and the strength and their wisdom. It doesn't come from that. The part of parent comes from the desire of the child to belong to you. 

When the child is driven to belong to the peer group, because we've taken him out of his natural context, we lose the authority. So we become authoritarian and the more authoritarian we become, the more pressure we put on, the more they resist. And then we labeled them with oppositional defiant disorder and we call them bad and naughty kids. All they're doing is acting out their attachment dynamics. 

The essential template for the emotional development of the child, as well as for the brains healthy physiological development is a nurturing relationship with neutral, responsive adults. That means that every time I use the relationship against the child will actually undermine the child's development because it makes the child insecure and kids in state of insecurity or in defensive flight or fight mode in which mode they don't learn anything. They just are defending.

So I have a two year old who's angry and most psychologists and pending extroverts will tell you timeout. You know what they're telling you is withdraw the relationship from the child as a way of threatening the child. And that threat will make the child comply with you. Well, the child may temporarily comply with you, but what have you taught her? You've taught her that the relationship is conditional, but their only acceptable to you if they please you. 

That relationship are unstable and unreliable, that you're not available for them when they're most upset. And you say to them, bring your most unhappy, that's when I'm at least available to you. And this is how parents are taught to parent. Just the opposite of what any loving parent wants to teach.

I was always waiting for my kids to grow older when I couldn't intellectually engage them, and now we'll have something in common. But the sheer state of being I could never achieve with them. So the communication happens on a much deeper level. The real relationship doesn't depend on words. It depends on the capacity to be with. I welcome your presence and I welcome you to exist in my presence. 

And I'm overjoyed to have you in my presence. That's what the child needs from a parent.

Schools and colleges are turning into a battleground for the contention among government and state laws for cannabis use – the enrolled students who utilize therapeutic cannabis for recreation are now standing against the old drug policies of the campus.

In all the states where medical cannabis pot is allowed, the students who are told to utilize it are prosecuting their schools. School authorities contend they could lose government financing for neglecting to keep regulatory law that considers marijuana an illicit substance with no acknowledged therapeutic purpose.

Sheida Assar said she was ousted from GateWay Community College in Phoenix a month ago for damaging the school's medication approach after she was found under the effect of cannabis – she has been using it to treat her persistent symptoms from polycystic ovary disorder.

She was a student of medicinal sonography in diagnostics. Assar stated, and a teacher explained to her she wouldn't have any issues if she used her Arizona medical marijuana card. According to her teacher, she has never been under the intoxicating effect of cannabis in class and she uses it to help herself sleep at night.

"They pulled me out of class on a school day," said Assar, 31, from Chandler, Arizona. "They accompanied me to the office like I was a ... criminal. It's clearly a case of discrimination, and it is additionally a violation of my privileges under the Arizona medicinal pot law."

Assar and different understudies state they got approved to use medicinal cannabis from school staff who serve students with wellbeing related needs — just to confront disciplinary action from highly ranked school authorities.

Assar said she plans to sue GateWay to recover the $2,000 she spent on educational cost and other costs related to her tenure. Her legal advisor as of now has been in contact with the school, she said.

A family was able to grow over 7000 pounds of purely organic food on 1/10^th of an acre in just one year – the output was able to cater the family’s diet by ninety percent. They were able to sell the extra produce for over 20 grands while they spent only $2 per day on each person on kitchen staples. This record-breaking organic production is setting an example around the world.

The family is located only at a 15 minutes’ drive from Los Angeles Downtown. This agricultural paradise was made on just a vacant lot in the city.  

What makes their organic produce so abundant? It’s the amazing permaculture method of growing agricultural garden with a natural process of creating a soil rich in friendly bacteria and nutrients.

The main difference between permaculture and other landscaping methods is that it is not just a set of practical methods, it is a way of thinking and adapting to a certain ecology. Each garden, each family, and each community is different – so permaculture is based on observation and local knowledge.

Permaculture is a system of principles of social and agricultural design whose work philosophy is to work for nature. To do this, it is based on its observation and uses systemic thinking, i.e.  it treats the different elements that make up the system as part of a whole.

The permaculture design system achieves the integration of the landscape with the people who inhabit it by providing them with their materials and non-materials in a sustainable way. Permaculture covers many aspects as it includes techniques of ecological design, ecological engineering, environmental design, management and creation of aquatic resources, sustainable architecture, the design of agricultural systems and conservation and self-maintained habitats modeled from natural ecosystems. The philosophy of permaculture incorporates ideas and practices of all time. It makes use of these systems and incorporates them into a broader framework to create sustainable human ecosystems.