Self Help Mantra - Happiness Makes For A Happy Heart

Happiness makes for a happy heart

People who are usually happy and enthusiastic are less likely to develop heart disease than those who tend to be glum, scientists said on Thursday, and boosting positive emotions could help cut heart health risks.

US researchers said their observational study was the first to show an independent relationship between positive emotions and coronary heart disease, but stressed that more work was needed before any treatment recommendations could be made.

"We desperately need rigorous clinical trials in this area. If the trials support our findings, then these results will be incredibly important in describing specifically what clinicians and/or patients could do to improve health," Karina Davidson of Columbia University Medical Center wrote in the study in the European Heart Journal.

Heart disease is the leading killer of men and women in Europe, the United States and most industrialized countries. Together with diabetes, cardiovascular diseases accounted for 32 per cent of all deaths around the world in 2005, according to the World Health Organization.

Over 10 years, Davidson and her team followed 1,739 men and women who were taking part in a large health survey in Canada.

Trained nurses assessed the participants' heart disease risk and measured negative emotions like depression, hostility and anxiety, as well as positive emotions like joy, happiness, excitement, enthusiasm and contentment -- collectively known as a "positive affect."

The researchers ranked the "positive affect" across five levels ranging from "none" to "extreme" and found that for each rank the risk of heart disease fell by 22 percent.

Davidson, who led the research, said her findings suggested it might be possible to help prevent heart disease by enhancing people's positive emotions.

"Participants with no positive affect were at a 22 percent higher risk of ... heart attack or angina ... than those with a little positive affect, who were themselves at 22 per cent higher risk than those with moderate positive affect," she wrote.

"We also found that if someone who was usually positive had some depressive symptoms at the time of the survey, this did not affect their overall lower risk of heart disease."

Smoking, being overweight, a history of heart problems in the family and high blood pressure are traditionally seen as major risk factors for heart disease, but studies have also linked such things as intelligence and income levels to heart risks. Research published last week found intelligence is second only to smoking as a predictor of heart disease.

Davidson's team said one possible reason for the link between happiness and heart risk could be that people who are happier tend to have longer periods of rest or relaxation, and may recover more quickly from stressful events and not spend as much time "re-living" them.

Source: Indian Express

Self Help Mantra - Six Keys To Success

Six Keys to Success


1. Attitude
Bloom where you are planted. You have a choice to get back up after temporary set backs. Attitude is a small thing that makes a big difference!


2. Direction
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. Write your short term goals down on paper. I have discovered and continue to discover that putting your dreams and goals down on paper lock in or focus your belief that they can be achieved--even if you have to take a course correction in achieving your goals. Success comes in cans, failure comes in can'ts.


3. Values
Explore what is important to you. Maybe it is family, friends, your spirituality or working hard at any given task. I can assure you that your priorities will change as you grow older. Very important that you value yourself and treat yourself like the valuable gift from God that you are.


4. Interests
Birds of a feather flock together. This is to say that if you are hanging around winners or others with a "can do" mind-set, you'll likely adapt to this same kind of thinking. Remember--"SUCCESS LEAVES CLUES!


5. Commitment
Feelings may change, commitments do not. "Success is getting up one more time than you fall." I have often wanted to give up, and then I must think to myself about what the consequences of giving up will be. Generally, this is more than enough of a motivation to make us stick to the task at hand even if we don't feel like it. When the task is achieved, Whow!--IT FEELS GREAT!


6. Encouragement
Be an encourager and comforter to friends that are feeling discouraged. I promise that you will not regret this as you will be encouraged by one, if not many, when you are feeling down. Encouragement and love are contagious qualities that can change the minds of the most stubborn and "hard-to-get- along-with" people you know. I have seen it happen over and over again.

Self Help Mantra - Being a Good Leader !

What gives a man or woman the right to lead..?

It certainly isn't gained by election or appointment. Having position, title, rank, or degrees doesn't qualify anyone to lead other people. And the ability doesn't come automatically from age or experience, either.

No, it would be accurate to say that no one can be given the right to lead. The right to lead can only be earned. And that takes time.

The key to becoming an effective leader is not to focus on making other people follow, but on making yourself the kind of person they want to follow. You must become someone others can trust to take them where they want to go.
As you prepare yourself to become a better leader, use the following guidelines to help you grow:

1. Let go of your ego.
The truly great leaders are not in leadership for personal gain. They lead in order to serve other people. Perhaps that is why Lawrence D. Bell remarked, "Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things, and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things."

2. Become a good follower first.
Rare is the effective leader who didn't learn to become a good follower first. That is why a leadership institution such as the United State Military Academy teaches its officers to become effective followers first - and why West Point has produced more leaders than the Harvard Business School.


To Be Concluded...

Some Interesting Facts - Part 3

It is impossible to lick your elbow.


A snail can sleep for 3 years.


The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start


In 1883 the explosion of the volcano Krakatoa put so much dust into the earth's atmosphere that sunsets appeared green and the moon appeared blue around the world for almost two years.


"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.


Twenty-Four-Karat Gold is not pure gold since there is a small amount of copper in it. Absolutely pure gold is so soft that it can be molded with the hands.


Electricity doesn't move through a wire but through a field around the wire.


Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Say no evil ).


55 per cent of people yawn within 5 minutes of seeing someone else yawn. Reading about yawning makes most people yawn.

Concluded

Some Interesting Facts - Part 2

The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning it's head are the rabbit and the parrot.


A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.


India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.


The whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.


A hippopotamus can run faster than a man.


India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.

Some Interesting Facts - Part 1

All the planets in our solar system rotate anticlockwise, except Venus. It is the only planet that rotates clockwise.



Hummingbirds are the only animal that can also fly backwards.



Insects do not make noises with their voices. The noise of bees, mosquitoes and other buzzing insects is caused by rapidly moving their wings.



The cockroach is the fastest animal on 6 legs covering a meter a second.



The word "listen" contains the same letters as the word "silent".

Help Mantras - Radio Buttons & Costliest Cities

Radio Button is a series of on-screen buttons that allow only one selection to be made from the group. A selected button will automatically de-select when any other button is selected.

Radio buttons come from the early days of radio which had five or six preset station buttons in a row. Pressing one button deselected the other station.

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Tokyo & Osaka are widely regarded as the cities with the highest cost of living by several surveys. Asuncion in Paraguay is considered the cheapest.

The parameters determining the cost of living include housing, transport, food, clothing and entertainment.