Increase your Brain Activity with 15 Ideas

These are 15 fun ideas that will increase your brain activity. It has been proven that the more exercise you give your brain the more it will grow and operate to new super levels. Are you striving to be more intelligent, more creative? Here’s a great platform on how you can achieve your goals.

1. Just stop.

“Take 20-30 minutes out of your day to think about nothing. But don’t sleep – you’ve got to meditate. Sit still, reduce sensory input, and try to focus your mind on something like a calm scene or a color (to begin with thinking about something rather than trying to think of ‘nothing’ is easier). A study at the University of Kentucky revealed that subjects who took a late-afternoon test after meditating for 30 minutes had better scores than those who napped for the same time.”

2. Hit the streets.

“Lace up your running shoes and get moving. A study from the University of Illinois, US, revealed that aerobic exercise actually increases brain volume. They put two groups through different regimens - one did aerobic training three times weekly for one hour; the other group did just stretching and toning exercise. The aerobics group had increased their brain volume and white matter, which forms the connections between neurons.”

3. Mix it up.

“Exercise has long been hailed as an aid to brain-power longevity. But to ensure you’re not leaving the gas on in your eighties, vary your workout routines now. Try changing things up on a regular basis and you’ll stimulate your brain more because you’re not using the same pathway over and over again.”

Shoulders

It has been some time since I thought my shoulders were "fixed." I was wrong again. But thankfully, I know I'm right this time. :)

I had rounded shoulders, andI did the Perfect Posture Plan. But I was still using my shoulders wrong and they were still not growing at all. I found that there is one last thing I needed to do to get my shoulders lined up correctly and working in coordination with my back and chest.

It took me a long time to figure this out instinctively yet it's so simple. It is necessary for me to do exercises while standing within a door frame.

What I did was to stand erect inside the door frame with contracted core and pushed against the insides of the door frame with my arms. I did that in various positions with forearms flat against the insides of the doorframe, directing the force through the elbows. I did this until I could move my forearms up and down, mimicking the shoulder press movement.

I'm not sure what effect this had on my back muscles or what it did specifically to my shoulders. Maybe it contracted my trapezius which could have been overly stretched out. Anyway, doing this doorframe exercise made all the difference in the world.

Good article [LATERAL COMBUSTION:Take lateral raises above parallel to prompt middle delt and trap growth] that argues that above parallel is actually is most effective way to do lateral raises.

Which brings us to the dumbbell lateral raise. Just about anyone who does this exercise raises the weights to only shoulder level, arms about parallel to the floor, but no higher. Know why? Think it causes rotator-cuff impingement and is dangerous to go above that point? Uh-uh. Think the arms-parallel position is where the middle delt stops working?

Wrong again.

“Going to arms parallel in the dumbbell lateral raise provides good deltoid recruitment and doesn’t put the shoulder joint in a stressful situation,” says Louie Brockhoeft, MES, a personal fitness coach at Mercy Hospital in Anderson, Ohio. “But taking the move 45 degrees past parallel fully engages the middle delt; plus it recruits the upper traps, levator scapulae and all muscles around the scapula, including the rhomboids, the lower traps and serratus.”

Shoulder Stretches for Swimmers

Yoga @ Your Desk

I do the poses from Yoga @ Your Desk before training shoulders and it helps prepare the muscles to do upper body exercises with good form.

Drama Prairie Dog

The best YouTube video is only 5 seconds long

McDonalds supersizes its Q&A list

McDonalds has launched a site answering its British customers’ questions. All of them, by the looks of it.

“Are your baconburgers kosher?” asks one curious connoisseur (A: “This item is not kosher”). “I read in the paper that some burgers contain poo. Is this really true? If so, what proportion of burgers contain poo?” asks anther. (A: “This is absolutely not true”). “What part of the cow do you use in the burgers cos i heard it was the teeth?” runs a third.

There are 8,500 of them. Each gets a considered answer from a McDonalds sage with the patience of a saint.

The link within the article is broken. http://www.makeupyourownmind.co.uk/

18 Cool Body Hacks

Soothe a burn, cure a toothache, clear a stuffed nose...[link]

This be funny storyz

I didn't make this one, but hehe.

Pump up the volume to bring on the burn

Pump up the volume to bring on the burn
"We asked you which songs get you moving. Your favorites ran the gamut from heavy metal (“Metallica … and White Zombie always make my workouts more intense,” writes Jennie from Schenectady, N.Y.) to soft rock (“I like to work out to Air Supply. It is so soothing,” writes Vince Jones) to soundtrack standards ("Anything from the ‘Rocky IV’ ... Combining the songs with the memory of Rocky training really gives [me] motivation to exercise harder," writes Hirsch in Chicago)."

• Anything by Frank Sinatra
• “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf
• “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” by Kylie Minogue
• “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails
• “Crazy in Love” by Beyonce
• “Earthshine” by Rush
• “Escape” by Gwen Stefani
• “Fergalicious” by Fergie
• “Fighter” by Christina Aguilera
• “Going Back to Cali” by Notorious B.I.G.
• “Hold On” by Santana
• “Hung Up” by Madonna
• “Lose Control” by Missy Elliott
• “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers
• “New Workout Plan” by Kanye West
• “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode
• “Promiscuous” by Nelly Furtado
• “Rent” soundtrack
• “Run Like Hell” by Pink Floyd
• “Running on Empty” by Jackson Browne
• “SexyBack” by Justin Timberlake
• “Starve” by Rollins Band
• “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell
• “You Could Be Mine” by Guns ‘n’ Roses
  

How Music Motivates Your Body, Men's Health
Best and Worst Workout Songs, Men's Health
The Science of Workout Music, Men's Health

OTC fat-diverting pill Alli, debuts today

FDA allows nonprescription sale of lower-dose version of Xenical

WASHINGTON - Dieters got a new tool Wednesday to help them take off the extra pounds — the first government-approved nonprescription diet pill.

The Food and Drug Administration said the fat-blocking weight-loss pill orlistat, which has been available by prescription, can be sold in a reduced-strength version over the counter.

The drug is intended for people 18 and older to use along with a reduced-calorie, low-fat diet and exercise.

Dr. Charles Ganley, FDA’s director of nonprescription products, stressed that the drug is intended for use along with diet and exercise programs.

“Using this drug alone is unlikely to be beneficial,” Ganley said at a telebriefing. ...

Ganley said in trials, for every five pounds people lost through diet and exercise, those using orlistat lost an additional two to three pounds.

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"We know that being overweight has many adverse consequences, including an increase in the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes," said Dr. Douglas Throckmorton, deputy director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "OTC orlistat, along with diet and exercise, may aid overweight adults who seek to lose excess weight to improve their health." link

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The way orlistat works to prevent weight gain or promote weight loss is to inhibit enzymes that would otherwise facilitate absorption of fat in the gastrointestinal duct. As reported, the drug can stop as much as 20 to 30 percent of dietary fat from being absorbed.

Because fat-soluble nutrients need fat as carrier to get into human body, the diet drug inevitably blocks absorption of fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamin D, K, E, and other fat soluble nutrients. For this reason, the consumers of orlistat are suggested to take a multivitamins at bedtime to compensate the loss of nutrients due to the use of the diet drug.

...

The worse part is this: studies showed the weight loss effect diminished and lost weight came back after use of the drug was discontinued. Those who want to keep the pounds off need to keep taking the pill. But that is not advisable because the long term adverse effects of this diet drug remain unknown.

Considering the fact that the drug prevents absorption of fat-soluble nutrients, potentially leading to malnutrition, it is unreasonable for one to continue the dieting regimen beyond six months. What does that mean is, you may have to lose the regained weight again later.

The side-effects of using orlistat, prescription or TOC, include gas with discharge, oily discharge, increased number of bowel movements, oily spotting, oily or fatty stools, urgent need to have a bowel movement and inability to control bowel movements. About 50 percent of patients on the drug experienced some side-effects and seven percent lost bowel control. For this reason, one may have to take another drug to get the side-effect under control. link at foodconsumer.org

This pill is meant for people who are cutting down their calories while burning more calories exercising. It is not meant for people who want to keep their current habits and also lose weight

'Exercise after eating' diet tip

Exercising after meals can help promote weight loss by boosting hormones that suppress appetite, say UK scientists.

Thanks to these hormones, active people feel less hungry immediately after exercise, and this carries through to their next meal, experiments suggest.

Even when their meals were bigger, sporty people gained fewer calories overall because they burned off more.

... levels of hormones called PYY, GLP-1 and PP, which tell the brain when the stomach is full, increased during and immediately after exercise. [link]

Yoga May Help Treat Depression, Anxiety Disorders

THURSDAY, June 7 (HealthDay News) -- Yoga's postures, controlled breathing and meditation may work together to help ease brains plagued by anxiety or depression, a new study shows.

...Brain scans of yoga practitioners showed a healthy boost in levels of the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric (GABA) immediately after a one-hour yoga session. Low brain levels of GABA are associated with anxiety and depression, the researchers said.

...She believes yoga could prove a useful tool to help people battling depression and anxiety disorders. "We're not advocating that they chuck their medication, but I would advise that they could use it as an adjunct and see how they are doing," Streeter said.

...She said the style or school of yoga practiced didn't seem to matter. "We had hatha, ashtanga, bikram, vinyasa, and kripalu" practitioners included in the yoga group, Streeter said, "and many had been trained in several different schools."

..He also pointed out that all of the people in the study were mentally healthy, and clinical depression and anxiety disorders involve more than the "daily fluctuations in stress and tension" that healthy individuals are prone to.

..."We know that yoga can have a profound effect" on smoothing out life's daily ups and downs, Segal said. "But so does working out on a Stairmaster for an hour."

...Would other mind-body practices -- Tai Chi, for example -- produce similar effects?

"I think that's very possible," Streeter said. "I suspect that all roads lead up the mountain." [link]