Joel Kramer, Professor of Neuropsychology, gave a talk about the brain some of the ways in which we can reduce dementia. These includes: cognitive reserve, aerobic exercise, cognitive exercise, diet, and more.
Some points mentioned are …
* high level of activity is associated with 38% decrease risk of cognitive decline
Dr. Mercola interviewed Mark Sisson who own the site marksdailyapple.com which features a community forum and is among the top well-visited health site on the net.
Mercola starts asking about how Mark got such traffic.
Mark used to be a world class athlete and exercise that he recommends is high-intensity body weight bearing exercises. He likes the pushups. It is possible to over-train. And many elite athletes have decreased health due to excessive oxidative stress and the high carbs that they are eating.
His recommended diet would be categorized as “Paleo Diet” type. He says that 80% of a person body composition is what one eats. And the remaining 20% is exercise and other lifestyle activities. Note that he says “what” one eats and not how much. Because this type of diet is a low carbohydrate diet. But you can eat as much as you want whenever you want as long as you avoid sugar and processed carbs and wheat, legumes, and dairy. Although he does recommend “intermittent fasting”.
He calls this type of lifestyle “primal” and wrote the book “The Primal Blueprint”
His other books are “The Primal Blueprint 21-Day Total Body Transformation” and a cookbook …
There is a free 92-page eBook called “Primal Blueprint Fitness” if you subscribe to his newsletter by putting in your email on his site.
Dr. Mercola interviews Dr. Doug McGuff who is an emergency room physician who does high intensity exercises.
Dr. McGuff explains why high intensity exercise is beneficial and why it is important to allow for enough recovery time.
In another video, you see Dr. McGuff doing some high intensity exercise himself. Warning, this is intense. After watching you will understand why adequate recovery time is important.
Also watch Dr. McGuff’s talk on “Body by Science” which he explains the science of high intensity exercise and why the paleo diet works.
Dr. McGuff’s book is …
Burnout is chronic exhaustion due to excessive or demanding work. Lost of motivation can also result. There can also be physical symptoms such as sleep irregularity and chronic fatigue. The excessive or demanding work take a physical toll on the physical body. Stress can deplete vital vitamins and minerals such as magnesium, especially if the worker is eating fast food and not eating a balanced healthy meal due to time constraints.
Burnout is not too much different from being demoralized. Except that burnout is more physical and demoralization is more emotional. Demoralization is when the worker do not want to work due to one reason or another. Burnout can be when the worker still wants to work to accomplish a goal. But there is just so much work and so little time and the body can only work so much.
When workers neglect to give the physical body the rest and restoration that it needs, it increases the chance of burnout.
Burnout is the body trying to tell the worker that he or she should stop. But when burnout is endured too long or if the worker refuses to listen to the body, it can lead to karoshi which literally means “death by overwork”.
“Burnout” is condition found in the 2012 ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Code. ICD-10 is the International Classification of Disease. In particular, it is ICD code Z73.0, under the more generalized category of Z73 titled “Problems related to life management difficulty”.
One measurement of burnout is the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) which takes into account “emotional exhaustion”, “depersonalization”, and “personal accomplishment”.
It is debatable as to which jobs has the highest rates of burnout. But there are many reports that general medical practitioner experience very high burnout rates (over 30% burnout rates). For example …
Wikipedia even goes as far as to say …
“Research indicates general practitioners have the highest proportion of burnout cases”
This is not surprising given the long hours that doctors and residents work and many of which are not getting enough sleep.
What is worst is that even back in 2003, MSNBC reported that job stress and burnout is on the rise.[2] Again this is not surprising since middle Americans are working longer hours in order to make ends meet than generations ago.
Ernie Zelinski writes in The Joy of Not Working …
“The detrimental consequences of the mad world of corporate life are far-reaching. In the frenzy of hard work and day-to-day survival, many employees have lost their personal dreams. Their overwork leads to deprived family lives, forgotten social lives, even separation or divorce. For those feeling burnout, there is no more purpose, meaning, or zest for living.” [page 43]
Not only do those with burnout have no zest for living, some actually die unexpectedly.
Technically, the cause of death may be a heart attack or stroke. But the root cause may be due to stress and overwork. The Japanese term Karoshi literally means “death from overwork”. This does happen. There are many news reports of people dying from overwork. And if you do a web search on karoshi in the news, you can find instances of such cases. There are karoshi hotlines as well as lawsuits related karoshi deaths.
There is a correlation between overwork and cardiovascular disease. The European Heart Journal reports that people who work long hours (such as 10 to 11 hours a day) have a 60% higher cardiovasular risk.[5]
Although Japan and possibly other countries may be keeping records of Karoshi deaths, the numbers are not readily available. And there are always many more cases that goes unreported. In addition, there will be a number of people who get severely ill, mentally ill, or commit suicide.[3]
Karoshi is a real phenomenon with the first incident reported in 1969. And there have been reports in the news since then. See YouTube videoof one such news report.
There are Karoshi Exhibition which display suicide notes by workers.
HuffingtonPost article reports of 2nd incident in a year where a Toyota workers have died of Karoshi. Article shows pictures of Japanese commuters so tired that they sleep during train commutes sometimes while standing.
Internet forum are talking about Karoshi and about how stressful working life is in Japan.
According to Wikipedia, Japan is among the countries with high suicide rate at around 23.8 suicides per 100,000 people per year (for 2011). This is 7th highest in the world. Although not all of these are due to karoshi.
The jobs that leads to the most suicide is again up for debate. But some findings are as follows.
In 1995, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) found higher suicide rates in the medical field.[reference] Not surprising since they have high burnout.
BusinessInsider.com reports in 2011 the following jobs with the highest suicide rates:
There is a game designed by Jesse Venbruz and published for Mac, Flash, iOS, Android, and PSP based on the Japanese work Karoshi. There is also a mobile version published by YoYo Games.
In this puzzle game, you maneuver a salaryman (named My. Karoshi) with the goal of committing suicide supposedly because the salaryman is sick of corporate life. Containing dark humor, parody of the corporate environment, and puzzle gameplay, this game has received much acclaim and is quite popular. It placed 5th in Wired’s top PC games of 2008. Other awards include “internet game of the month” by EDGE Magazine.
We are reminded of the old adage: “Work to live; not live to work”. And definitely, do not die for work.
So when your body start giving you the warning light with burnout symptoms, listen to it and stop. If you continue driving, it is like driving with your low-oil warning light on in your car. It is going to burn out your engine.
Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net gives us four ways to not become a work-aholic:
1. Don’t be achievement-motivated.
2. Don’t be a workaholic.
3. Learn to relax and de-stress.
4. Learn to feel good about it.
Or read The Joy of Not Working.
The balances in the gut flora between the good and bad bacteria can affect the brain and causes symptoms such as autism and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.
In YouTube video, Dr. Mercola interviews Dr. Natasha’s Campbell McBride who had cured her son of Autism with the “GAPS diet” that she pioneered.
GAPS is “Gut and Psychology Syndrome” and her website is http://www.gaps.me/ where she has her book which is a self-help book for parents explaining what foods are good and bad for autism.
Parts of the GAPS diet is (1) restricting sugar and carbohydrates, (2) introducing probiotics in the form of fermented foods, (3) and detoxification.
Dr. Mark Hyman explains similar concepts when he gave his talk at Google where he mentioned how helped ADHD boy by correcting diet and other imbalances in gut.
Depression is a name given to a set of symptoms consisting of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person’s thoughts, behavior, feelings and physical well-being.
But there are many different causes that can produce this depressive state. Here are just a few of the many causes (listed in no particular order) with links to references…
Omega-3 deficiencies, Vitamin D deficiencies, magnesium deficiencies, vitamin B deficiencies, etc.
Cholesterol deficiency and low-fat diet may cause depression.[reference and here]
Mercury toxicity and mercury dental fillings.
Hypothyroidism (as mentioned in Dr. Lo Podcast) can result in depression.
Dementia associated with Depression
Calcium Toxicity or Calcium deficiency
Concussion and brain trauma
In the book Digestive Health with Real Food (page 45), it writes …
“People with fructose malabsorption don’t have enough tryptophan, even though they eat enough of it, and therefore can’t produce enough serotonin to feel good … in their study, reducing dietary fructose resulted in a 65-percent improvement in depression score in only four weeks.”
Here is a video of a lecture that explains the biology of depression and the affects of stress.
The video says that depression may be a whole body disorder and that more Americans suffer from depression than coronary disease, cancer, and AIDS combined. It is the leading cause of disability in North America.
The biogenic amine theory of depression is the idea that there is a deficiency of certain neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine.
Khan Academy is a website where you can learn about Math, Science, Humanities, Test Prep, and much more with over 140 million videos.
The videos by Mathemusician Vi Hart on YouTube are fun to watch and educational too.
One of her videos was featured on NPR. And she has a website at vihart.com
Looking for healthy information, nutrition, and healthy lifestyle. Here are some health authorities on the web listed in no particular order.
DearPharmacist.com (Suzy Cohen)
DietDoctor.com (Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt)
ThePaleoDiet.com (Dr. Loren Cordain)
Evolutionary Psychiatry (Emily Deans)
There are so many types of diet out there. Here are just a few of the popular ones listed in no particular order with links to learn more about them …
Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD Diet)
GAPS diet – pioneered by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
The answer to that question is up for debate. And it really depends on the particular individual and conditions. Here are some references …