Category — Life

Anxiety is a (sometimes annoying) emotional and cognitive state. Emotionally, we recognize it as sensations of fear, grief, worry or general apprehension. The cognitive component entails expectation of a diffuse and uncertain danger. The threat or perspective of danger triggers the body’s defenses: the flow of blood to the muscles is increased, which in turn implies rising blood pressure and heart rate. Needless to say, such alert activation involves a higher consumption of body’s energy, and also other parts, such as the immune system, are inhibited in order to increase energetic reserves and focus for fighting the hypothetical danger.

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Current stressed lifestyles and rushed, unhealthy diets are important promoters of high cholesterol levels in the body. We should always remember that the first step toward recovering our health and treating any medical problem should be an evaluation by a qualified specialist (I do recommend consulting a good cardiologist for treatment of cholesterol problems.)

This week I had my annual cardiological checkup. These tips expand on the recommendations of my cardiologist, and they could prove useful for keeping low cholesterol levels and, in general, a healthy lifestyle. Basically, we should start out by adopting better nutritional habits, including the following:

Eat more fiber and fruits, vegetables and whole cereals (maize, rice, wheat, sorghum, etc) because they promote lowering of bad LDL cholesterol levels, without affecting good HDL cholesterol. Prefer vegetables to fruits, though, because the latter usually contain higher concentrations of sugar. On its side, whole grains may be nutritionally superior to refined grains, and richer in fiber, some proteins, antioxidants, minerals and vitamins. By the way, did you know that “cereal” derives from “Ceres”, the name of the pre-Roman goddess of harvest and agriculture?

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This weekend I attended a talk by a friend of mine, a 15 years local expert in what she calls energetic organization of homes and business environments (you know who you are ). I must admit, though, that I’m not too convinced of the modern hype of the word energetic, unless it refers to people’s internal, mental energy. I think that people, not things, are the true source of energy. A sane mind and healthy body should always be our prime priorities. Nevertheless, according to the crowd of people who attended her conference, this seems a very popular topic nowadays. And surprisingly, a few themes resulted to be interesting for me.

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Simply put, your mind needs some exercise in order to stay young and healthy. The basis for brain’s life is processing of new data and stimuli. Our minds should be regularly exposed to updated information and new experiences, in order to reach higher levels of creativity, openness, speed, and adaptation. Looking for new ways of thinking is an excellent exercise for being smarter and more sociable. Nevertheless, in the following I detail a neat list of simple exercises for improving our minds’ state:

1. Solve some puzzles and crosswords: A puzzle is a problem or enigma that challenges ingenuity. Basically, you piece together objects in a logical way in order to come up with the desired shape, picture or solution (obviously, a crossword is a type of puzzle.) Puzzles are often viewed as a form of simple entertainment, but they are powerful allies for increasing brain activity.

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The initial answer against fear and panic would be stress. Typically, this reaction causes anxiety, wake up panic and lost of self-confidence. Fear and panic have their roots in circumstances and settings which we feel are no longer under our control. When we are dealing with a lot of variables simultaneously, the mind tends to flood with negative thoughts regarding our fears about not being able to handle the situation willingly. All humans have instincts, and we all share most of them in different stages. Stress, therefore, is a state of the body and mind reacting to a perceived danger. Ideally, such alert state would wake up reflexes for coping with danger and problems. However, when the alert becomes too big (for internal or external reasons), it has an opposite, paralyzing and unhealthy effect. Now, why did that happen? Think of your mind as a computer disk. You store all your information there, but some processes have allowed it to receive garbage information. You have to remove such garbage from your disk, and restore it to its original state. For the time being, the following tips may prove useful:
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In the following, I’ll briefly expand on the key points for achieving success when you have to work in groups. As a result of the complex and dynamic nature of human interactions, you may find working in groups a challenging issue. In fact, the coordination and agreement required by groups is a research topic by itself. But the powerful rationale behind groups is the divide-and-conquer approach: a bigger workforce may lead to bigger results (but not always, and in some fields, such as software engineering, it may easily be the opposite.) In this respect, I’ll propose 10 aspects we should strive for when working with other people. You may find this discussion useful for the college, the office or life in general.
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In a recent motivation talk, an attendee asked me for a succinct list of the things we should care for if we wanted to live longer. Well, I frankly have no idea about how to live longer, nor about how to look younger (plastic surgery perhaps?). However, I have 7 recommendations we could pay attention to if we want a healthy life:

1. Variety: In your physical exercises and activities, in your habits, leisures, and meals. Besides, your mind should have a reasonable daily rotation of ideas (please, don’t focus too hard, too long into a single thought.)
2. Regularity: For eating, for sleeping and of course, for working.
3. Eat more, eat less: Have plenty for breakfast, less for lunch, and a very frugal dinner. Eat your antioxidants, mainly fruits and vegetables (including vegetables oils). Some coffee, tea, chocolate and wine is also ok.
4. Self-confidence: If you are hoping that another person makes you happy, you’re asking to be disappointed and framed. Be yourself, and trust your feelings. Love life.
5. Exercise: Your body and mind must be in equilibrium. Remember that you live in a material world, and your body is your direct communication with it. At least take some long walks, in order to fortify your muscles (and your mind).
6. Relax: Switch your mind and body, and forget about work, conflicts and hardships. Look forward for better times.
7. Patience:As time goes by, you will see the things you have worked for… to come true.

But foremost, discover the things that work for you!

Hello, this is the first content post Life. Money. Development. Here, we’ll speak about goals. First, do you know what a goal is? According to Wikipedia’s entry:

An objective or goal is a personal or organizational desired end point in development. It is usually endeavored to be reached in finite time by setting deadlines.

And that’s it. A goal is that thing you want to achieve. Normally, those achievements are not isolated things. On the contrary, they imply several subgoals you have to reach first. In this sense, we have to define how are we going to conduct in order to reach the subgoals. Remember, it’s not only the arriving point what matters… the integrity you show while following your path is the most important fact.

Now, what are your life’s goals? Or better stated, what do you want? Money? Family? Health? Education? Fame? A superb job? Please, answer this first. Oh, and… where do you belong? To the material or to the spiritual type?

Now, before continuing, do you have the bases to achieve your general goals? Let’s assume you want that very-well-paid-job. Do you have the required education? No? Then you have to introduce a subgoal related to academic formation. Yes? Then, have you researched the job’s field thoroughly? Do you know the current information trends related to that job? Do you know what is the state-of-the-art in such knowledge area? Do you know who are the best representants of that job? What are the biggest companies? Now, do you have a solid contacts network? Please, start thinking, and start answering.

My own goal with this post is to flame your awareness, cognition and self-view on yourself. That’s the starting point of the journey we will be revisiting in upcoming posts.