Give a Senior a Bus Pass – Increase Active Travel

A British study found that seniors who received free bus passes were more likely to engage in active travel, including walking, biking, and public transport.

UPDATED ON Apr 24, 2015 PUBLISHED ON October 2, 2012 WRITTEN BY alive Editorial  alive.com

Do you worry about an older relative who stays at home a lot? You might want to buy that person a bus pass. A new British study found that people over 60 who received free transit passes were more likely to get out and engage in more physically active forms of travel—including walking, biking, and public transport.

Free bus passes

The study, which was just published online in the American Journal of Public Health looked at several outcomes of a program in England that began in 2006 and that issued free bus passes to anyone aged 60 and older, with limited access, and then expanded in 2008 to include bus transit anywhere in England.

More active travel

Data collected through a National Travel Survey from 11,218 people aged 60 and older who received the free passes and 5,693 who didn’t, showed that those who had been issued a pass travelled more widely. The use of the free bus passes appeared to be consistent across the range of socioeconomic status.

Reduced social exclusion

According to the lead author of the study, Sophie Coronini-Cronberg, MSc, of Imperial College London, “A key purpose of the concessionary scheme is to increase bus use as a means of reducing social exclusion among older people and, in particular, to ensure access to travel among those on limited incomes.

Added benefits

What the study also found, though, was that those who used the free bus passes not only used transit more widely, but they also cycled and walked more often—three or more times per week. We all know what that means—better overall health.

Lower costs

The researchers, in their report, indicated the benefits of this program to the overall economy, given that physical activity was estimated to cost the (UK) economy £10.7 billion annually and that the free bus pass program, which was significantly associated with increased physical activity among older patients, cost much less at £1.1 billion annually.

Staying engaged

The British study emphasizes the importance of staying engaged—especially as we age. Here are some other simple health tips for older adults:

Maintain a positive outlook.
Keep moving.
Stay connected.
Exercise your brain.
Consume more nutrients than calories.

https://www.alive.com/lifestyle/give-a-senior-a-bus-pass%c2%97increase-active-travel/

Having a Higher Purpose Protects Your Health

You’ve probably heard that having a positive attitude benefits your overall health, but did you know that having a higher purpose could reduce your risk of suffering a stroke by nearly 50%?

10 May 2015
Danica Collins

You’ve probably heard that having a positive attitude benefits your overall health, but did you know that having a higher purpose could reduce your risk of suffering a stroke by nearly 50%? A study published in the March 19^th 2015 edition of the scientific journal Stroke revealed that individuals with a strong sense of purpose were 44% less likely to have the type of brain tissue damage that raises the risk of age-related dementia, disability, and mobility issues.

A Sense of Purpose for Stroke Prevention

Researchers performed autopsies on 453 seniors in their 80s enrolled in the Rush Memory and Aging Project. These seniors took part in yearly physical and psychological evaluations prior to their death. Purpose in life was measured on a five-point scale. For every one-point increase in score, the odds of a macroscopic infraction—the visible evidence of stroke damage—showing up on their autopsy decreased by almost 50%.

The link between having a higher purpose and brain tissue damage/stroke held even when researchers adjusted for obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, smoking, and lack of exercise, depression, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Lead author Lei Yu told Reuters: 

“We and others have shown that purpose in life is protective against multiple adverse health outcomes in older age… Importantly, purpose in life may be improved through changes in behaviors or participation in activities like volunteerism, among other things…Older people with a greater sense of purpose are less likely to develop adverse health outcomes, including mortality, decline in physical function, frailty, disability, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and clinical stroke.”

 Researchers suggest strengthening your sense of purpose through volunteering, building a supportive social network, and continually learning new things and exploring with new adventures. We are all driven by different causes, and we all have unique talents and skills to offer. Start believing in and sharing yours today!

This post is on Healthwise

Go to Healthwise for more articles

http://undergroundhealthreporter.com/having-a-higher-purpose-protects-your-health

Let positive thinking be your guide in life

Posted on 30 December 2013 - 04:34pm

Bridget Menezes

THOUGHTS are our tools. They are the key to ­opening up our intellect and our mind, and with it, we can chip away at the blocks of our old limiting belief systems.

Thoughts are also ­vehicles with which we navigate through our ­inner universe. They are the energy that creates the impetus for ­understanding and change.

When you do not control your thoughts, you are ruled by your emotions, memories and ­circumstances or by your environment which you are in.

Your life is, therefore, controlled by internal and external conditionings. This reactive nature leads you to live an emotionally unstable life.

Positive thinking helps you to be in charge of your own life. You do not blame ­others or problems that arise.

Your behaviour is not a result of the ­conditions or ­circumstances, but a result of your own ­conscious choice based on selected values.

Positive thoughts are the basis for greater achievements in life. They cannot be measured in terms of money.

If we control our thoughts, we are ­indirectly controlling our speech and actions.

Therefore, we have to sow the seed – thought – so that the tree – speech and actions – grows and gives fruit.

You will embrace life with enthusiasm knowing that there is untold ­benefit in every scene.

http://www.thesundaily.my/news/916982

The Twist - Chubby Checker (Videos)

Brings a smile whenever I watch these videos.

I can't help noticing how slim everyone was in those days, almost 3 generations ago.

Enjoy!



(Not sure what happened to this video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qApIQt4qKjg




http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=im9XuJJXylw




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh8eb_ACLl8

The Emotion That Fights Heart Attacks

Carl Lowe | Jul 11, 2013

What’s your emotional state right now? Cheerful? Gloomy? Optimistic? Worried? Researchers at Johns Hopkins say that the right attitude could drop your heart attack risk by up to 50 percent.

“If you are by nature a cheerful person and look on the bright side of things, you are more likely to be protected from cardiac events,” says study leader Lisa R. Yanek, M.P.H., an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “A happier temperament has an actual effect on disease and you may be healthier as a result.”

In this study, Yanek and other researchers analyzed data from GeneSTAR (Genetic Study of Atherosclerosis Risk), a 25-year Johns Hopkins project sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.

Among other things, study participants filled out well-being surveys and received a score that indicated how cheerful they felt and levels of anxiety and life satisfaction. In 12 years of researcher, the scientists found that those expressing positive emotions, on average, had a one-third reduction in coronary events. Among people with the highest risk for coronary events, there was nearly a 50 percent reduction.

Yanek says that cheerful personalities are probably temperaments that people are born with and may not be readily altered.

http://easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/the-emotion-that-fights-heart-attacks/

Happiness Is Easier Than You Think

Georgianna Donadio | Jul 10, 2013

If you ask most people what they want in their lives and what is most important, they will likely tell you that they “want to be happy.” The desire for happiness is a universal want; and it transcends culture, geography, age and social status. An example of its pervasiveness: It even finds its way into the academia.

The most popular course at Harvard Medical School is a course on happiness. Taught by Harvard psychology professor Tal D. Ben-Shahar, Ph.D., the course is so popular that students wait a year or longer to get in.

Happiness is defined as a state of well-being and contentment, joy, a pleasurable or satisfying experience; yet many people report that happiness is elusive or too often fleeting at best.

Different Take

Modern happiness gurus like Ben-Shahar offer an altered take on what happiness is or can be. They invite us to walk us around the subject and take a different look at the almost mystical feeling called happiness, not from an “I’ll be happy when” perspective, but allowing ourselves to see how happiness can be enjoyed anytime we choose to have gratitude and joy about the daily, simple blessings in our life.

The lesson is that there are things we can be happy about right now and continue to be happy about throughout the day, no matter what else has happened or is going on. These things and experiences are already built into our lives, and it is just a matter of focusing on the simple pleasures and joys these opportunities can prove:

• The peace and tranquility of rising early in the morning.
• The first taste of food and drink in the morning.
• Listening to birds singing.
• Watching strangers laugh and smile.
• Enjoying natural beauty.
• Working cooperatively with others.
• Curling up with a good book on a rainy day.
• The pleasure of lying down on clean, soft bedding.
• Time with your best friend.
• Being kissed.
• The smell of apple pie baking.
• A moment of love shared with family.
• A home-cooked meal.
• A freshly cleaned bathroom.
• A long, hot bath or shower.
• Music that moves you.
• Sharing stories and memories.
• Being hugged.
• Breathing deeply.
• Completing a task or project.
• Time in a garden.

Think of all the things in your day that can bring joy or happiness when you allow yourself to be in the moments of your life, and share your hours and days with others and with yourself. Happiness is all around us. It is often just allowing ourselves to embrace it.

For a free chapter download about changing behavior, visit changingbehavior.org.

http://easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/happiness-is-easier-than-you-think/


See also:  Happiness 101 with Tal Ben-Shahar - Video

Look at smiley faces and become an optimist, scientists claim

Looking at smiling and angry faces and meditating for 20 minutes can transform your way of life and turn people from pessimists into optimists in seven weeks, according to scientists.

Dr Michael Mosley: teaching 'well-being’ can be the key to success  Photo: BBC

The Telegraph

By Claire Carter

7:31AM BST 11 Jul 2013

Researchers believe it is possible to teach yourself to have a more positive outlook and improve sleeping patterns by practising simple exercises such as meditation and clicking on images of people smiling.
 

Studies of the brain show that in people who are more negative and anxious the right side of the brain is more active. But it is thought by simple exercises it is possible to change the way the brain works and have a brighter attitude to life.
 

The findings were aired in a BBC documentary that followed presenter and father of four Michael Mosley who has suffered from insomnia for the past 20 years and wanted to become a happier person. Over the course of seven weeks he followed two exercises aimed to make him more positive.
 

He said: “I feel quite frankly astonished that you can notice that much change in just seven weeks.

“I set out to see if it was possible to change my mind and I think I might have done it. I am absolutely thrilled.”

Mr Mosley had his brain analysed by experts at Essex University, who found he had more activity in parts of the brain associated with negativity and pessimism – the right side of the brain which was three times more active.

He was given two exercises to follow, which involved meditating and looking at a screen showing 15 blank or angry faces and one smiling one. Mr Mosley had to click on the happy face to train his brain to seek out positive images more readily.

After seven weeks Mr Mosley told the BBC 2 programme Horison: The Truth about Personality, he felt happier and was sleeping better and scientists said the activity in both sides of his brain had become more equal, a sign of optimism. He also reacted more quickly to positive images.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/10172932/Look-at-smiley-faces-and-become-an-optimist-scientists-claim.html


Look on the bright side, banish the blues and think yourself happy

A Horizon programme shows how you can recalibrate your brain and train yourself to have a more sunny disposition

By Harry Wallop

7:59PM BST 05 Jul 2013

Are you happy? Did you open the curtains this morning, see the sunshine and bounce out of bed? Or did you just worry about your lawn drying out?

For years, many scientists believed that your personality was predetermined; that your genes decided whether you were an optimist or a pessimist.

But a Horizon programme, presented by Dr Michael Mosley and broadcast next week, suggests that genes play only a very small part and that you can, in fact, train yourself to have a more sunny disposition. A few simple mind exercises might be enough to switch negative people into positive ones.

If the show touches a nerve in the same way as Mosley’s documentary about fasting – which kick-started the phenomenally popular 5:2 diet – many of us could soon be undertaking mental workouts in our lunch hour.

The programme is timely, because the happiness of individuals is something that policymakers have started to take very seriously indeed.

Yesterday, a new charity called MindFull suggested that a third of under-16s had experienced suicidal thoughts, and called for mental health to be taught in schools. And later this month, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will publish its National Well-being report.

A growing number of studies suggest that our positivity has a measurable impact on our health and our educational achievements. The most stark example comes from Oxford, Ohio, which in the 1970s conducted a study of its inhabitants, then aged over 50. So who has survived in good health? Those who had a positive outlook on their life and impending old age have lived, on average, 7.6 years longer than those with negative views.

In crude terms, being happy could add years to your life. It doesn’t just benefit your health, either. Educational attainment, too, seems to be linked to attitude. Nick Baylis, a consultant psychologist, works with the pupils at Hendon School, a former comprehensive (now an Academy) in London that was in special measures. Now, 87 per cent of pupils get A-C at GCSE. He believes that teaching both the staff and pupils “well-being” and coping strategies was key to this success. Other schools have started to teach mindfulness, an increasingly popular form of meditation, too.

For the Horizon programme, Mosley had his brain scanned by Prof Elaine Fox, a neuroscientist at Oxford and author of Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain. She says brain asymmetry is very closely linked to our personalities. “Through monkeys, humans and lots of animals, the amount of activity in the front cortex does seem to be a good marker for positivity and negativity.” Positive people have a more active left frontal cortex; Mosley had a substantially more active right frontal cortex – proving his assertion that he is one of life’s Eeyores.

“When I look into the future, I see all the things that are going to go wrong, rather than the things that will probably go right,” he says. He also suffers from insomnia.

Prof Fox is among a growing number of psychologists, however, who believe that you can change this brain asymmetry and thus your personality through a series of exercises.

The most basic one is called Cognitive Bias Modification. To do it, you look at a screen for 10 minutes every day over several weeks. During those minutes, a series of 15 faces are flashed up. All – except one – are either angry, upset or unhappy. You have to spot, and click on, the one happy face.
It seems simple. Surely, trying to spot a happy face isn’t going to make me more optimistic?

Prof Fox tells me: “I was very sceptical when I got into this initially. But the task we used in the show has been used with kids with self-esteem issues. And it does seem to have very powerful effects. It’s early days, but the signs are that it is definitely effective.”

It worked for Mosley, who over a couple of months of exercising was able to recalibrate his brain. He says that he is sleeping better “though I am not exactly Rip Van Winkle”, and that he is more optimistic. So should we all be doing the exercises? “I think anyone could do them, but I suspect a fair number who start then let it slide,” he says.

Of course, many psychologists argue that relentless happiness is neither normal nor healthy. Prof Fox says: “There are situations when things go wrong, and having a healthy dose of pessimism can be good. But the evidence shows that, broadly, having a positive attitude really does boost your well-being.”

'Horizon: The Truth About Personality’, Wednesday, BBC TWO, 9pm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/wellbeing/10162322/Look-on-the-bright-side-banish-the-blues-and-think-yourself-happy.html

Simple steps to develop a positive outlook

Follow these nine steps to practise a form of meditation to develop a sense of relaxation. Start off doing this for ten minutes, working up to 20 minute sessions

The Telegraph
8:01AM BST 11 Jul 2013

Instead of focusing on anxieties or negative thoughts, focus on your breathing 

 

^ALAMY Concentrate on the beating of the heart, and imagine it pumping blood around your body

 

^ALAMY Consider any thoughts that make you feel anxious objectively rather than reacting to them

 

^GETTY Don’t try to stop your thoughts, just try to consider them calmly 

^{DAB Radio Alamy} Treat your thoughts like they are background noise, like having a radio on
in the background, and don’t make them your main focus

Attempt to not judge your thoughts as good or bad, but instead consider your thoughts with curiosity 

^GETTY If your mind wanders, acknowledge that this has happened and bring your focus back to your thoughts 

Continue to work with your fears for the period of time you have chosen 



^ALAMY During meditation you can feel like you have more thoughts than
normal, but remember this is not the case – you are just becoming more aware
of them and dealing with them becomes easier the more you practice 

The Mindful Manifesto, by Dr Jonty Heaversedge and Ed Halliwell, Hay House, £10.99
 

Source:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/10172949/Simple-steps-to-develop-a-positive-outlook.html