This is a story that just supports the way that we live as a society and it is not just about quitting smoking but also about drinking, losing weight, doing drugs and buying new cars. The fact is that when people that we are around and share values with make a change in their lives then we do too.

You may have heard sometime in the past that if you want to make more money then hang around people that make more money. The same is true if you want to get in shape, hang out with people that are in shape. We all pick up on the habits of those around us and reading about the following study helps us to understand that changes do in fact come in a large part due to those around us.

A team of researchers who showed that obesity can spread person-to-person has found a similar pattern with smoking cessation: A smoker is more likely to kick the habit if a spouse, friend, co-worker or sibling did.

What’s more, smokers tend to quit in groups, and those who don’t stop puffing increasingly find themselves pushed to the edge of their social circles, the researchers found. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: alcoholism, California, co-worker, Harvard Medical School, infectious disease, James Fowler, Jennifer Unger, large social network, lead author, medical sociologist, National Institute on Aging, New England Journal of Medicine, Nicholas Christakis, obesity, San Diego, social network, University of California, University of Southern California

What if your mind’s eye could take you to a place so peaceful that the experience eased your pain or sped your recovery from surgery? It’s not such a far-fetched concept. In fact there are many studies that show that guided imagery can be good in many parts of your life.

“Guided imagery,” a type of mind-body therapy that uses visualized images to communicate to the housekeeping systems of the body, is making its way into traditional medical settings.

“People are just now taking a very serious look at it,” said David E. Bresler, co-founder of the Academy for Guided Imagery, in Malibu, Calif., and author of the book Free Yourself From Pain. “There are a handful of hospitals around the country and around the world that are starting to implement these programs,” he said.

In one study, researchers at Harvard Medical School found that more than 30 percent of U.S. adults have used some form of mind-body medicine, a category that includes imagery, according to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Bresler, a traditionally trained Ph.D. neuroscientist, first became intrigued with alternative methods of pain relief in the early 1970s, as founder and director of the University of California, Los Angeles, Pain Control Unit. Patients often used vivid images to describe their pain. It felt like an ice pick to one person, fire ants to another. One particular patient, a psychiatrist with a painful rectal carcinoma, suffered low back pain that he said “felt like a dog chewing on my spine.”

Bresler knew that when patients used their imagination to go to a peaceful place, it helped them to relax, so he guided the agitated psychiatrist through a relaxation exercise. When the man’s pain flared up, Bresler instructed him to speak to the dog. Would it let go of his spine? Then, an astonishing thing happened — when the dog let go to talk, the man’s pain subsided.

Today, guided imagery has numerous applications. Sports psychologists use it to enhance athletes’ physical performance. Cancer centers often use it to relieve patients’ pain and nausea.

In a 2004 study in the journal Pain, researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center found that children who used guided-imagery tapes before and after routine surgery had significantly less pain and anxiety than a control group. More recently, researchers examined how children used these tapes, which suggested that they “go” to a park, at least in their mind. Many, though, put their own spin on the proposed image, allowing them to escape to places like a swimming pool, a lake or an amusement park.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Academy for Guided Imagery, agitated psychiatrist, Author, California, cancer, carcinoma, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, co-founder, Complementary Medicine, David E. Bresler, fatigue, fibromyalgia, Florida International University's School of Nursing, founder and director, Guided imagery, Harvard Medical School, imagery, imagery researcher and professor, involving chronic, Los Angeles, low back pain, Malibu, Miami, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, nausea, pain, Pain Control Unit, psychiatrist, relaxation, Sports psychologists, surgery, Swimming, United States, University of California, Victoria Menzies

Mens Health is a great magazine ofr telling it like it is, sometimes with a liitle to much brovado. I think this article is really worth it to read though for food substitutions that can make a real difference.
If you keep eating the way you always have, you’ll never improve on the body you’ve got. And the prognosis — on the mom diet, at least — isn’t good. Look at your dad. That’s why we’re providing you with 15 sneaky ways to improve your diet. Same foods, better results. And nobody needs to be the wiser. Just think of these food strategies as the cork in your bat, the glue on your glove, your own personal, syringe-wielding East German Olympic swim-team coach. Only difference is, each one is simple, nutritionally sound, and perfectly legal in all 50 states.

1. Whey your options
Add a cup of ricotta cheese to your fruit smoothie. Ricotta is a soft, mild cheese that’s made almost entirely of whey, the liquid that separates from curd during the cheese-making process. Whey contains cysteine, an amino acid that helps produce a cancer-fighting antioxidant called glutathione. When Ohio State University researchers treated prostate cells with whey protein, glutathione levels jumped by 64 percent.

2. See red
Got leftover tuna salad? Stuff it into a red bell pepper instead of sandwiching it between two slabs of Wonder bread. Red peppers and other red-fleshed fruits such as tomatoes, watermelons, and ruby-red grapefruit are high in lycopene, a phytochemical that can reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 20 percent. Bake the pepper and you’ll make it even more potent; heat makes lycopene easier for your body to absorb.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alzheimer's disease, Author, Banish iceberg, Block Center for Integrative Cancer Care, brussels, California, cancer, Cancer Care, chemical compound, Cheryl Forberg, colon cancers, Cynthia Sass, David Grotto, director of nutrition education, Evanston, food, food strategies, food substitutions, food tips, Golf, health-food store, heart attack, heart disease, Illinois, Leonard Bjeldanes, National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Aging, Ohio State University, oil, Olympic, Olympic swim-team coach, professor of nutritional sciences, prostate cancer, prostate cancers, U.S. Department of Agriculture, University of California