Helpful ingredient detective tips for navigating food labels..... — Body Burden Balance Very thankful to collaborate with a friend and contributor that shared her story for this post.... Once in a while I find myself at the corner supermarket to grab an emergency meal or forgotten ingredient, and it never ceases to amaze me: the endless aisles, colorful boxes, bottles, and bags of products conjures a vision of enormous scale. Companies in this country and around the world have massive manufacturing plants, endless distribution pipelines and mind-blowing profit marketability. All these realizations started during an innocent nightly routine…. my little 2 year old at the sink brushing her teeth, and glancing down at the tube of Elmo toothpaste, I saw something that instantly changed our lives forever. I soon discovered the EWG - Environmental Working Group database of all beauty related products, with safety ratings based on research, along with extensive lists of individual ingredients that are of cause for concern.
7 Tips to Improve Communication Skills Have you ever noticed that some people avoid using question marks in their emails? They will say: “Can you call me to discuss.” Or: “When should we meet for dinner.” I think they’re trying to signal power, but these linguistic bids for dominance never fill me with respect. They just get my back up. Some people do just the opposite. This latter group seems to fall into two categories. I first noticed these dynamics when I worked on Wall Street, where the peremptory style of e-mail seems especially prevalent. Apparently not. Grant says that people who pose questions instead of answers, admit their shortcomings, and use tentative instead of assertive speech are some of the world’s most powerful communicators. It boils down to this insight: When people think you’re trying to influence them, they put their guard up. And among salespeople, powerless communicators bring in 68% more revenue than “takers”—in large part because they ask more and better questions, and listen to the answers. 1. 2.
A Beginner's Guide to Intermittent Fasting | Nerd Fitness “…But Tony the Tiger tells us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” This rule has become so commonplace throughout the health and fitness community that it’s readily accepted as fact: “Want to lose weight? Make sure you start off with a healthy breakfast, so you can get that metabolism firing first thing in the morning! “Want to lose more weight? There are even studies that show those that eat earlier in the day lose more weight than those who ate later in the day or skipped a meal. So, eat breakfast to lose weight and obtain optimal health. Maybe you’re not getting the whole story. After firmly being on “Team Breakfast” for 28 years of my life, I’ve skipped breakfast for the past three months and might never go back to eating it. I want to share with you a concept about skipping breakfast (and other meals), and how your health will benefit as a result. Tony ain’t gonna be happy, but today we’re talking about intermittent fasting. What is intermittent fasting? Absolutely!
7 Struggles People With Concealed Depression Understand It is a hard thing to hide depression. Why would someone do this? Well, for a number of reasons: to make themselves seem normal and strong as opposed to weak and fragile. People that conceal their depression deal with many struggles that many of us can’t understand. 1. It is fairly normal for people who conceal their depression to appear as happy as everyone else that is around them. This is a truly sad situation. 2. People with hidden depression know that they like to be alone sometimes. It is complicated, but I have gone through it and I know that this truly does happen. 3. People who conceal depression are either sleeping way too much or sleeping too little. When I went through depression, I sometimes found it very difficult to get sleep and other days I would just sleep the entire day. 4. People who hide their depression know that they go through death each single day. 5. People who conceal their depression yet again look for a purpose to life. 6. 7.
How to Disagree with Someone More Powerful than You - Harvard Business Review - Pocket Your boss proposes a new initiative you think won’t work. Your senior colleague outlines a project timeline you think is unrealistic. What do you say when you disagree with someone who has more power than you do? What the Experts Say It’s a natural human reaction to shy away from disagreeing with a superior. Be realistic about the risks Most people tend to overplay the risks involved in speaking up. Decide whether to wait After this risk assessment, you may decide it’s best to hold off on voicing your opinion. Identify a shared goal Before you share your thoughts, think about what the powerful person cares about — it may be “the credibility of their team or getting a project done on time,” says Grenny. Ask permission to disagree This step may sound overly deferential, but, according to Grenny, it’s a smart way to give the powerful person “psychological safety” and control. Validate the original point After you’ve gotten permission, articulate the other person’s point of view. Do:
‘You took away my worth’: A sexual assault victim’s powerful message to her Stanford attacker She’s known in local newspapers as 23-year-old “Emily Doe” — a pseudonym to protect her privacy amid an emotional court battle in which former Stanford University varsity swimmer Brock Allen Turner was found guilty for her sexual assault. Prosecutors said that in January 2015, witnesses saw Turner sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster on campus. The case came to a close Thursday when the judge sentenced Turner to six months in county jail and then probation, and ordered him to register as a sex offender over three sexual assault convictions: assault with the intent to commit rape, sexual penetration with a foreign object of an intoxicated person and sexual penetration with a foreign object of an unconscious person, according to Palo Alto Online. The newspaper reported that when handing down Turner’s sentence, the judge in the case said he understood the “devastation” the victim suffered, but he feared imprisonment would have a “severe” impact on Turner.
The Science of Marginal Gains (How You Can Achieve Big Results From Small Wins) Habit is persistence in practice.” — Octavia Butler I’m a big fan of micro habits. A micro-habit is a small, simple action that doesn’t require much motivation, but will help you achieve just about anything in life. Few repeated actions, done everyday, so discreet that they could easily go unnoticed. That’s how long-term habits are formed. That’s how you change behaviour. Not radical pursuit of good habits. If you improve every area of your life in small steps, you will become unstoppable. The one percent margin for improvement in everything you do is one of the best ways to build new habits. It’s so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small gains on a daily basis. Everything meaningful takes time Overnight success is a myth. You can’t achieve extraordinary results without putting in the work consistently. Almost every habit that you have built over the years — good or bad — is the result of many small decisions you have made over time.
How a great conversation is like a game of catch Barry Lee When you play catch, you have to do an equal number of catches and throws, right? It’s not possible to play catch with somebody and throw more than you catch, for the most part. Because then you’d just be throwing baseballs at them, which is not nice. There’s a great study out of Harvard in which researchers discovered that talking about yourself actually activates the same pleasure centers in your brain as sex and cocaine. How do you go beyond small talk to have a meaningful conversation with somebody? Not every single conversation that you have is going to be in-depth and serious. What about that awkward silence when you don’t know what to say next? By the time that you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated. What should you do when it is very clear from body language that the other person is not listening? End it. You make the case that all experiences are not equal. People always push back on this topic. So you shouldn’t say, “I know how you feel”? That’s the worst.
An existentialist guide to life, work, dating, and exercise — Quartzy Some people are apparently totally cool with living in an absurd world. Presumably, these folks don’t experience existence as futile or see enthusiasm as foolish. However, not all of us are so lucky or plucky, and so we’re left mustering up reasons to be and do even as we sense it’s all pointless. We can’t go on. We must go on. We’re already here. The reluctant have to make meaning up. Still, we are not doomed to perpetual gloom. Forged in the fires of futility Existential philosophers have already worked out some answers for you, so don’t despair. But don’t let your fundamental gloominess be a reason to do nothing. Think about it. But if you manage to live life based on certain values because you’ve examined them and found them preferable under the circumstances to other less laudable or more destructive approaches, that’s no joke. We are each born into a set of facts, accidents of circumstance, that describe and shape our reality—class, race, gender, religion, et cetera. Work Dating Go on
How should we talk about mental health? Mental health suffers from a major image problem. One in every four people experiences mental health issues — yet more than 40 percent of countries worldwide have no mental health policy. Across the board it seems like we have no idea how to talk about it respectfully and responsibly. Stigma and discrimination are the two biggest obstacles to a productive public dialogue about mental health; indeed, the problem seems to be largely one of communication. End the stigma Easier said than done, of course. Avoid correlations between criminality and mental illness People are too quick to dole out judgments on people who experience mental health problems, grouping them together when isolated incidents of violence or crime occur. But do correlate more between mental illness and suicide Avoid words like “crazy” or “psycho” If you feel comfortable talking about your own experience with mental health, by all means, do so Self-advocacy can be very powerful. Separate the person from the problem Humor helps