Emotional Health - Training Healthy Mind and Spirit with Dr. Bookspan

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Emotional & Mental Fitness

Copyright © Jolie Bookspan MEd, PhD, FAWM

Welcome to my web site DrBookspan.com to make life better, fitter, healthier, smarter, simpler, and sometimes funnier. My work is evidence-based sports medicine methods to fix pain and injuries, and train and recover in healthier ways. I put fun stories on this web site of my lab research in environmental medicine and physiology in extremes of heat, cold, injury states, altitude, underwater, g-Force, and other challenges.
This Page has short stories on training emotional and mental fitness. I consider these skills as basics for healthy life - bare minimum knowledge and ability for healthy mind and spirit. Each story features short, direct things you can do every day, any time.
Hope to see you at my Classes, maybe at a rare Private Appointment, and in fun projects that I run for my Academy's School of Healthy Medicine. More about me in Adventure Medicine.
SITE MAP. At the bottom of this page (and every page) are main navigation links, ways to send your great ideas, and buttons to SHARE, TWEET, and LIKE.

Healthier Heart
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

Scorn, anger, name-calling. Not good for the heart. The best warrior wins without hurting others or himself.

The Thais call it "jai yen" - cool heart. The secret is to not make anger a negative force. They keep kindness in their voice. Jai yen is central to Thai social and business interaction. It illustrates the mind and body of the experienced warrior.

1. Jai yen is part of Muay Thai boxing training. In Thai martial arts, respecting teachers and elders is foremost. Every fight begins with the Ram Muay, a spirit dance to show respect and thanks to parents, and ask blessings from the Kruu Muay Thai - the teachers.

2. In Japan it is "fudoshin" - unchanging heart. A person with fudoshin is more stable and light-hearted when things happen that they don't agree with.

3. How do you get good at being heart-healthy? Practice it like exercise. Unlikable things happen every day, so we all have the good luck to get much chance to practice. It's healthy exercise.

In the novel Shogun, James Clavell, wrote:

"To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline - training is about."

Discipline is the mental exercise of self-control to direct your behaviors. With discipline you brush your teeth everyday, and do exercise, and refrain from bad habits, and breathe and smile when someone is rude. This doesn't mean you let them hurt you. You prevent harm without making harm:

The other person may continue injuring their own health with negative behavior, but you won't sadden yourself and injure your body with the unhealthy chemicals generated that can hurt your health and heart.

If your kindness and understanding calms and comforts the other person, that is twice healthy.

Breathe. Get outside in the sunshine every day. Make your own happiness, it won't come from externals.

Thank you for photo of respect as medicine - noii's photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/noii/416443890/

"That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no Gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is a grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882) American Poet and Essayist

Strengthen Character
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

Prevent a common habit that weakens your character - judging others.

1. After talking to someone, passing them on the street, leaving a party, interacting with them on a checkout line, meeting, internet site, or telephone, do you inventory their perceived faults?

2. Do you pass your poor temperament to others by retelling the list?

3. Notice if you harm yourself with this habit, and instead, decide to leave an interaction with clean character:

Never think you know someone well enough to judge them.

This truth comes from my black belt student Christopher Emmolo.

Thank you for photo - victoriapeckam
http://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriapeckham/164175205/

"As the body needs physical exercise in order to remain in fit condition, man's spirit also requires the spiritual exercise derived when he confronts his problems and combats life's vicissitudes."
~ William and Mabel Lewis Sahakian (1922 - 1986), describing the philosophy of Epictetus

Strong Spirit
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

If someone cuts you off on the road or in a line and pushes ahead of you:

Smile, nod, and wave them ahead.

They may be on their way to the hospital. They may have just lost their job, their father, their child. It may be their last day on Earth. They may be a lump who doesn't know goodness. Show them.

They insulted you? Smile, nod, and wave them ahead with strength.

It was never between you and them. It is between you and your Highest Spirit.

Thank you for photo - rahio
http://www.rahoi.com/

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."
~ Oscar Wilde

Quick Refreshed Perspective Every Day
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

Strengthen appreciation. Appreciation increases happiness, lowers blood pressure and stress chemicals, and reduces resentment, an unhealthy state of mind:

1. When you turn on a water faucet, notice that you get water. This is more than several millions of people have. Real people, as deserving as everyone else, walk miles and pay criminally inflated prices for water that is sometimes too dirty to drink. More about this is on my Nutrition page.
2. When you turn on an electric light, notice that you get light and have electricity. In every room. At all hours. In many part of the world, even in major cities, they do not have electricity more than a few hours and sometimes, none in non-public areas.
3. If you are reading this, you may have a computer or other electronics. Even if it is in a library and you waited in line, you have these luxuries to browse for life enhancing ideas.

Right now, there are people carrying loads and walking miles just to dig for food and water, or carrying all their belongings on their back and living in tent refuge cities to escape persecution, sieges, physical attacks and worse, and have been for years. Not complaining doesn't mean to not change things. Do something about it:

It is fantastic bounty to have water and electricity. Try to notice it, and be happy for it.

It is also true that tap water may retain unnecessary chemicals and destructive pharmaceuticals even after sanitation treatment. We can reduce polluting and taking unnecessary drugs that pass through us and enter the water system.

Don't pollute and litter without thought.

Work to change the lives of all the many without basic rights and privileges.

Show children that you appreciate, and don't destroy. Lead by example.

"We have enough youth
How about a Fountain of Smart"

Open Your Eyes and World View
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

Learn a long-known, little talked-about world crisis encompassing health, politics, economics, pollution, and human rights. See the movie Flow (flowthefilm.com) to quickly learn several global practices that improve your health to know:

1. Water is the third largest global corporate-profit industry after electricity and oil, leaving surprising pollution, disease, graft, and social destabilization in its wake. Corporations seize local waters for resale, leaving the world's poorest without access to unpolluted water to drink and bathe, and frequently without any water at all. Over 1 billion people do not have safe drinking water, resulting in millions of sicknesses and deaths per year, including several millions of children and infants. Even Westerners are affected. Possibly 116,000 human-made chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and hormones are already identified in public water supply, consumed in the West through drinking and through the skin in washing. Known health effects range from stomach illnesses frequently mistaken for "flu," food-poisoning, or bowel problems, and breathing difficulties

2. Be aware that you can turn on a tap and get water. An average American uses 150 gallons of water per day. Billions in developing countries walk miles and still cannot get more than five gallons. Staggering numbers of people around the world have total income averaging $2 (two American dollars) a day, and are being charged to travel distances and lift and carry water that was once available to them without charge.

3 When you buy expensive bottled water know that it is frequently ordinary tap water resold in deception, various pretentious "fitness waters" are not as healthful as eating ordinary fruit, and the bottling results in avoidable large scale pollution.

Thank you for photo of daily world life - stevemonty
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevemonty/166356174/

"It is easier to build healthy children
than to repair broken men."
~ Frederick Douglass

Strengthen Yourself by Lifting Up Others
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

Strengthen your thoughtfulness by uplifting your community:

1. Carry simple thank you notes with you, and a working pen.

2. Write and leave a short sincere thanks to those who often deserve and rarely hear the words.

3. Ideas - cleaning and maintenance crews, receptionists, desk clerks, mail carriers, repair people, crossing guards, security, drivers, teachers, customer service, others.

Thank you for photo - lilivanili
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilivanili/437709250/

"When someone does something good, applaud.
You will make TWO people happy."
~ Samuel Goldwyn

Exercise Involvement In World Health
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

Shed unhealthy petty feelings of maltreatment because you had to wait in line for your luxury items, or didn't get them in your color.

1. We have things to be extremely grateful for.

2. Most of the time, it is not necessary to gain them through harming others or the Earth.

3. Lead by example. Teach children and others not to litter, pollute, harm others, do harm for money, do harm for power, harm themselves.

Simple Ways to Get Started

My Academy teaches people and communities how to be healthy in body and actions.

Readers who use my work have been teaching their groups simple healthy bending and movement for daily life instead of injury producing habits, good food instead of disease causing food, healthy training for high level athletics and military, healthier medical practices for sick, injured, preventive medicine, "green" fitness, and healthier mind set.

Come join us by doing simple things in your home and community - click Academy.

Thank you for images sent to me by dear colleague Dr. Ern Campbell - ScubaDoc
http://scuba-doc.com/medcntr.html

Human Rights
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

December 10th is Human Rights Day, annually.

The health of humanity is accomplished by freedom, equality, dignity, and the conscience for all to act in goodness to each other.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948. Read it in languages, "from Abkhaz to Zulu" on the web site of The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland www.unhchr.ch/udhr/

"The most important human endeavor is striving for morality in our actions.
Our inner balance and even our very existence depends on it.
Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to our lives."
- Albert Einstein

Pro-Social Behavior Improves Health of All
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

Doing selfless good is not only for the benefit of the receiver. Move your body and brain to make a happier world, passed on like a game of tag.

Lily is one of my martial arts students. She writes:

"In my Psychology class called “Child and Adolescent Development” my teacher asked each of us to do simple acts of kindness throughout the semester.

"Pro-social behavior is the opposite of antisocial behavior. The ideas behind doing simple acts of kindness are as follows: behavior is contagious, we model behavior for others, and we become what we do. Acting in kind ways toward others is positive behavior that we model for others. It is valuable to model this kind of behavior for children.(The Behaviorists say that behavior is learned.) It is important to teach children about kindness, because children’s brains are developing, and experiences hardwire the brain.

"Each week at the beginning of class, my teacher would ask her students to please share a simple act of kindness. Examples (some are mine, some are others'):

1. “I held the door for someone.”

2. “I gave a friend who doesn’t have a car a ride to school today.”

3. “I cooked my mom dinner.”

4. “I helped my mom stretch her legs in ways she normally could not, to help relieve her pain.”

5. “I helped a stranger change their tire.”

6. “I was about to pull into a parking spot, but let another person, who was obviously in a rush, have the spot. They thanked me.”

7. “I e-mailed a classmate the homework assignment when they had missed class.”

8. “I helped a very drunk girl find the bus stop and gave her a token to get home.”

9. “I helped my little brother with his homework.”

10. “I call my grandmother regularly now, just to talk, when before I only called her if there was a specific reason.”

11. “I helped someone fix their printer, even though I was initially unsure how to.

Try some. Make health contagious. Send in your own successes doing small things that pass happier ways on.

Thank you for photo - Yappakoredesho via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kadhara.jpg

Making A Face
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

In the first act of Macbeth, Shakespeare wrote, "Your face, my thane, is as a book where men may read strange matters."

Your face shows how you lead your life. In other words, "Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician." How can you improve your face?

1. Healthy exercise and hard work doing good deeds, benefits your face more than the same time and money spent on artificial makeup.
2. Stop eating sugar and processed flour. Your skin will improve. Stop fried food and soda. Simple healthy nutrition improves your face and skin more than all the money spent on fast food, expensive "health food," engineered supplements, and skin drugs.
3. Let dignity and honest work polish your face. Genuine laughter does more than corny face exercises and forced laugh yoga. The life you live of integrity, thinking of others, and lack of self-absorption, shows more on your face than all the facial exercise gizmos and programs.

Actress Lauren Bacall said, "I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that."

Instead of spending on externals, save the money or give it to the poor. Decide how you want your life to look, then go make a face

Thank you for photo (Some rights reserved) - Alyssa L. Miller
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2576/3687343654_5829d6236e_b.jpg

"I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him."
--Booker T. Washington, American Educator

Recycling and the Movie "Garbage Dreams"
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

Recycling trash is honorable and beneficial for people and Earth.

The word 'Zabal' is a person who collects trash. The Zabaleen of Cairo are a class of people who for generations, have collected the city's trash by hand, with devotion and honor, and the certainly that from their sweat, they do important work for their community and the world.

The Zabaleen recycle 80% of all they collect, all by hand. They build and run their own school to educate their children in literacy, manners, good and honorable conduct, studies, and recycling techniques.

The city decided it was progress to be modern and great like the West, and change to using trucks and companies to collect the trash, mostly dumped into landfill. The livelihood of the Zabaleen is dwindling. The movie Garbage Dreams shows their members visiting a landfill, incredulous that anyone would throw such literal treasure into a hole. One exclaimed that trash, and the possibilities and materials it possesses, is a gift from heaven, not to be wasted at cost to the Earth.

The movie tries to appeal to audiences by making it a drama of the decisions of three of the teen Zabaleen, but I hope the greater message the teens make is not lost. It is not progress to look down on classes of people. It is not progress to waste. It is not progress to be made to feel you are not good because you work to clean the world.

1. See the movie Garbage Dreams - garbagedreams.com.

2. Learn a long-known, little talked-about world crisis encompassing health, politics, economics, sweat-of-the-brow work, pollution, and human rights.

3. Notice litter on the ground. Stop littering. Know that it is good and honorable to pick up trash, not something beneath your values. Pick up trash today (be prudent what you reach into). Thank others who do this work

Garbage Dreams was supported by a grant from the Sundance documentary film program. It won several Film Festival awards.

Garbage Dreams movie poster from myspace.com/garbagedreams
Thank you for photo of Cambodian dump slums - venetia joubert sarah oosterveld via Flickr
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/12041923@N04/3330954668)

Get in Shape with Good Deeds
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

Get in shape with true fitness:

"For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry."
- Audrey Hepburn. British Actress

Thank you for photo by freelang.net
http://www.freelang.net/

Does Meditation Give Focus and Concentration?
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

People often meditate by staring at a candle but tense their shoulders preparing dinner and driving, hold their breath to lift things, and are easily distressed when someone cuts in front of them.

Sitting quietly, staring at something, or nothing, or counting, is the first five seconds of the first lesson. After this simple start, you are supposed to *use* the concentration and focus on the positive to do everything else. The fact that some people take years to master the first five seconds, or spend their life doing only this minor introductory part is another story.

Sometimes students come to my classes and talk a lot about how yoga and martial arts gives you discipline, but they can't organize themselves to get their paperwork filled out or their things put away off the floor. They claim the Arts give you patience and awareness, then get angry when someone's cell phone goes off during class and when I show them how to bend and sit in a way that helps rather than harms their health. People use the catch phrase "mind-body" then sit in poor posture not using their body and losing their mind.

Anyone can meditate in the quiet dark, staring at a candle. Can you stay focused and calm and happy in real life? That is the point of a good meditation practice. To learn that outside actions do not make you react like a puppet. Can you stay healthy and keep your blood pressure from rising in real life when the phone is ringing and the babies (of all kinds) are screaming? Or when nothing is happening externally to make you focus and get things done. Instead of only practicing meditation sitting, get up and get healthy by turning away negative thoughts, staying on track, and breathing easily when doing housework, during interactions with others, and all exercise you do.

There are stories that ancient monks sat and meditated unmoving for years, then got up and ran marathons. Those turned out to be folk tales and fables. The monks actually soon found they had trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping, and that their joints hurt. They needed exercise. They developed systems of using their body while practicing concentrating because they had to defend the temple and their emperor. When bad guys attacked they couldn't say, "Oh I can't work under pressure." They had to unfalteringly see and do frightening things to win bloody defenses. They had to be able to lie down that night and sleep, not lie awake saying, "Oh I'll have such nightmares. How could he yell at me? I am so ruined by what I saw and what happened to me." They had to practice being mentally strong while they practiced fighting. Their meditation was done raking leaves from monastery paths, preparing dinner, chopping wood, and during all their strenuous training.

A common interpretation of meditation is that quieting the mind is like letting the waters of a pond to become still and empty. Swirling pollutions separate from the water and fall, leaving the water clear, pure, and still. The problem with leaving the practice half finished like this is that, like throwing even a small pebble in the water, the smallest disturbance to the person swirls up all the uncleanliness, clouding their mind and sometimes pouring out of their mouth. They are only able to function when all is calm and still. They can't handle being stirred because the junk is still all there.

Meditation doesn't mean being blank with no thought. It means discarding bad thoughts, and to fill yourself with good ones to make yourself stronger than any disturbance. Often people who try to literally empty their mind find that bad rushes in to fill the vacuum. Fill yourself with good. Especially in real life.

All exercise is supposed to train focus and concentration. All household chores too. Work too. Use meditative action for all you do. The time to put your meditation into practice is during all your other practices, when practicing archery, when breaking boards, when gardening, cooking, and especially when dealing with people and situations. Instead of only practicing mediation when sitting quietly, remember to keep the mental skill of turning away negative thoughts and remembering your inner goodness when doing housework, exercise, and during interactions with others. This skill, like any other, gets better with practice.

"Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm."

- Publius Sirus

Thank you for photo by stevekwandot, Creative Commons

Equinox - An Exercise in Treating People With Equality
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

As the earth continues its yearly path around the Sun, the center of the disk of the Sun passes over the Earth's equator twice a year. At the date of the equinox, night and day are approximately equal length all over the world (small variations for refractive and other effects). At the March equinox, the Northern Hemisphere begins Spring, while the Southern Hemisphere begins the shorter days of Autumn. Each day, for the next three months, days become a few minutes longer and nights shorter in the Northern hemisphere. The sun appears more northerly in the daily skies until the Solstice in June. Then it reverses, with Northern days shortening and Southern hemisphere days lengthening, until equal again at the September equinox, and continuing until the Solstice in December.

1. Japan celebrates six days of the Spring equinox (shunbun no hi). Graves are visited during the week to reflect on looking forward and back. The six days are based on the six perfections: giving, observance of virtuous teachings, perseverance, effort, contemplation, and wisdom. Nowruz, in various spellings, is a major Spring observance among many Eastern religions. Nowruz comes from Persian words meaning "new daylight." Observances may date to at least 15,000 years ago. Diverse Indo-European cultures celebrated the Spring Goddess-mother and source of returning life. In the West, many observe the return of Spring and life with symbols of eggs, birth, passing, and rebirth.
2. The equinox is a fitting time to reflect on equality. That does not mean that everyone must get the same shoe size, but that you consider someone of higher or lower social rank with the same (high) respect.
3. There is a story that at the end of the final exam of the finest MBA program in the country, was one question, "What is the name of the person who cleans the floors of this building?" Anyone not able to answer this did not get a degree that semester.

Do you say hello to the people who work so hard to make a beautiful place for you to learn and work? Do you care who they are? They are a special human being like you are. Learn their name. Say hello. See the difference it makes to them and to your world outlook.

Not only at the equinox, but concept and practice everyday.

Thank you for Special person photo by Juin Hoo
http://www.flickr.com/photos/juin/67899376/

"Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means."
- Charles Dickens (1812 - 1870) English Novelist

Strengthen a Neighbor, Strengthen a Community
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

Three years before this article was written, Merlene's closest friend died. Merlene was 74, and lost all motivation. Because she was not exercising, she gained a lot of weight. This is where Ivy came in.

Ivy from New Zealand, frequent contributor of success stories using my work, wrote me about her neighbor Merlene:

"You will be pleased that I have a new lady under my wing so to speak. I lent her your book "How To Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs Or Surgery." Along with giving her advice she tells me that it has changed her life which pleases me."

I wrote to Ivy to ask her if Merlene would be comfortable telling us more on what she did, so others could try it too. Ivy replied:

"I encouraged her to walk again.

At first it was difficult, she had difficulty breathing. I noted that she was walking flat footed and taught her to lift her toes. She complained of back pain.

showed her how to lie on her stomach and lift herself up on her elbows before getting out of bed in the mornings. She has now learnt to put her spine into the neutral position. Re her breathing, I showed her how to breathe deeply. She told me that she rolled her neck every day in a circle - she now does the trapezius stretch plus pectoral stretch instead. "Instead of bad bending, she uses good bending through half-squats and lunges to make the bed, do vacuuming and cleaning, going to the fridge and the like, plus gardening.

I checked in with Ivy a while later to make sure all was still improving, and gave her questions to ask Merlene so I could make sure all was well. Ivy wrote again:

"Today I visited Merlene and asked her some questions. She is stronger, breathing has improved, she is more flexible, can walk further, the back pain has improved immensely. She hasn't weighed herself yet, however, is hoping that there will be a weight loss when she weighs herself next week.

She finds your books "How to Fix Your Own Pain Without Drugs or Surgery" and your Stretching Smarter book very helpful so I left them with her so that she can refer to them.

"She also tells me that your books along with my help and advice has changed her life for the better. She has lost that negativity and feeling positive about life again.

"Merlene is a very quiet, private lady so I try to treat her in a gentle way. She comes from another country and I gather that life has been very hard. She is so enjoying what she is doing. Most important is the fact that she trusts me plus she is very happy you are doing this article.

"Merlene is happy for you to use her name. Re the photo and title (for this article) she would rather it was your choice.

Hugs
Ivy "

Thank you for photo Image - Bob Jagendorf via Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20801313@N00/58102754

"As one's fortunes are reduced, one's spirit must expand to fill the void."
- Winston Churchill

Exercise Your Sense of Humor
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

A woman walked up to an old man rocking in a chair on his porch. "I couldn't help noticing how happy you look," she said. "What's your secret for a long happy life?"

"I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day," he said. "I drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty foods, and never exercise."

"That's amazing," the woman said. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-six," he said.

There is a Buddhist saying that laughter is the language of the Gods.

Like every other skill, your sense of humor needs exercise to be healthy and be strong. Exercising your sense of humor also seems to be key to keep you healthy and strong.

Increasingly, medical studies show positive medicinal effects of humor and laughter. In reading them for this post, many were numbingly humorless. I looked around some local medical fitness programs and gyms where people are exercising for health, and everyone looked miserable.

Then you have people like my mother, a dancer. One of the classes she taught was tap dance for senior citizens. She named one of her lively groups, "The Clogging Arteries." Another is "Tapaholics Phenomenous - We Do More Than 12 Steps."

Josh Billings (pen name of humorist Henry Shaw) summed it up:

"There ain't much fun in medicine, but there's a heck of a lot of medicine in fun."

Exercise your sense of humor to reduce unhealthy stress and daily troubles: Don't argue with an idiot; they'll beat you with experience. Don't stress to be punctual; there may be no one there to appreciate it. Be like Santa Claus; only visit people once a year. Reduce stress on the road by peacefully ceding way to others. Joe Louis, boxing heavyweight champion, explained why he did not hit a motorist after the motorist abused him following an accident, "Why should I? When somebody insulted Caruso, did he sing an aria for them?"

"Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine."
- Lord Byron

Thank you for photo Image - Tom Maissey via Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomm/95267255/

Sunlight Needed for Physical and Mental Health
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

In 2008, Scientific American published a survey finding, "Americans are losing interest in going outdoors." As health providers, we need to see if part of that problem is from the practice of telling people that staying out of the sun is necessary for health. We also tell kids to finish everything on their plate and sit still - two more practices, that on examination, translate into, "Practice and learn to be sedentary and to overeat."

Disease

For the last 40+ years or so, each summer has brought warnings to stay out of the sun, practically zero tolerance for light exposure, urging hats, sunscreens, dark glasses and staying indoors. There also seems to be a rise since then in incidence of diseases usually not seen in the young - soft and porous bones, depression, chronic body pain (fibromylagia and related), diabetes, and others. Other factors are involved, obviously. Sunlight seems to have several effects needed for overall health, including helping the body produce Vitamin D. Lack of Vitamin D is linked to higher risk of lung cancer, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, high blood pressure.

Depression

Sunlight deprivation has been found in a clinical study to cause profound negative change to portions of your brain associated with depression. It was also found that, at least in rats, that without sufficient sunlight, "neurons that produce norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin, which are common neurotransmitters involved in emotion, pleasure and cognition, were observed in the process of dying."
Study source - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences March 25, 2008, vol. 105 no. 12 4898-4903.

Studies in humans also show depressive changes and reduction of brain neurotransmiters - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=sunlight+deprivation%20brain%20changes%20in%20humans

Nearsightedness

Nearsightedness in the young has been directly linked to lack of enough sunlight and playing outdoors in early years. Here are some search results of real studies, directly linking lack of sunlight to the "boom" in young people needing glasses for myopia -
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=sunlight+myopia.

Dementia

Sunlight has been found to ease the behavioral problems of dementia. Several studies have found that sunlight helped with depression and agitation in elderly people. It is likely that younger people benefit also. Simple adjustments, not only in lighting, but scheduling daily outdoor activity and simple walks, may ease behavioral problems associated with dementia. Why is it such a mystery that some people "wander" - they need to walk and move. Encourage them and walk with them outdoors.

Glass and Windows Block Needed Components of Sunlight

Sunlight filtered through glass is not full spectrum and does not transmit the rays associated with tanning, sunburn, or formation of Vitamin D. People spend much time losing full spectrum light because they cannot get it through window glass including auto windshield glass, eyeglasses, sunglasses, and many brands of contact lenses. Go outside. Where indoor conditions permit, open your windows. Avoid constant artificial lighting. Get actual sunlight and fresh air inside the house and your vehicle.

I am not a researcher in radiation or light spectrum or effects on the body. I have been taught that ordinary glass transmits a proportion of UVA rays, and blocks UVB which has needed benefits. I am a scientist, but not in this field. Still, here is my prediction: Why do people allow so much time for exposure through glass missing proportions of the spectrum, then put on sunscreen to go outside where they could get the rest of the spectrum they need? Perhaps we should keep the sunscreen mostly for indoors and get prudent amounts of full spectrum light when outdoors?

For Everyone

Try to go outside every day, even if cold (within reason), even if ill (within prudent parameters), it will help get well (and well-being in the meantime). Bundle up, if you need to.

Let your eyes get some outdoor light daily. This does not mean to stare at the sun and induce cataracts, but to get outside and get sunlight in healthy ways for the several different crucial mental and physical benefits.

We all need to keep learning about using good "sun block" that balances allowing needed benefits of sunlight and stopping as many unwanted negative effects as possible.

Getting part of your Vitamin D is easy through food sources, including vegetarian sources like mushrooms, however you can also take a prudent approach to getting the several different beneficial effects of the sun. The sun and real food, not enhanced or enriched food, seem to have the many components of D and related compounds needed for D to function, not available though an isolated supplement.

Thank you for sun birds photo by Photo by Zenera
http://flickr.com/photos/zenera/79744029/
Sun Cat photo Photo by sweet mandy kay
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetmandykay/2866618072/

Sedentary Lifestyle Linked to Teen Emotional and Behavioral Problems
by Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM

A study of physical activity in more than 7,000 teenagers found that inactivity is associated with emotional and behavioral problems.

Teens with less than one hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity a week had more symptoms of anxiety, withdrawal, depression, sleep problems, rule-breaking behaviors, attention problems, and somatic complaints (body pain).

Study author Marko T. Kantomaa stated in an American College of Sports Medicine news release,

"Negative mental and emotional effects brought on by physical inactivity does not help young people ease into adulthood. Physical activity could be a highly effective and relatively easy way to help that transition and could, in addition, lead to establishment of lifelong healthy habits."

The study was published in the October issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise - Kantomaa MT, Tammelin TH, Ebeling HE, Taanila AM. Emotional and behavioral problems in relation to physical activity in youth. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2008 Oct;40(10):1749-56.

Increase in physical activity is known to reduce incidence of depression and anxiety in both adolescents and adults.

No Gym Needed:

Use the stories above for many social activities that build physical and emotional health.

Build effective healthy movement into all you do - Functional Fitness as a Lifestyle.

Learn healthier habits for life and movement throughout this web site. Have fun.

Depressed teen photo by katherine of chicago http://flickr.com/photos/katherineofchicago/2089140534/
Soccerbalance photo by Stallenuk http://www.flickr.com/photos/7929544@N03/2250810037/s

""True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess."
- Louis Nizer

Examples Of Healthy Spirit - How To Be Good

Being good is good. Easy. Right to do.

What thanks do you get when no one knows you do good? This is the concept of Intoku a Japanese word meaning good done in secret. The underground stream that makes the whole world green:

You make your world green just through your ordinary daily actions.

A short video called "Unsung Hero" from a Thai commercial:

If the video does not load in your browser, click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWA2GbcnJU

From Russia dash cams:

If the video does not load in your browser, click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzBInt4zljQ

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