Thanks, Ankur!

what ever happened to religious equality?

LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE

 

Ph. D. Paul E. McGhee said "your sense of humor is one of the most powerful tools you have so that your daily mood and emotional state support good health.” All of us love us an $8 pack of Advil to make our headache go away, but what we don't know is that the solution is actually free. We spend money like water on drugs like tylenol because it's the first outlet we turn to when we're feeling sick. We spend $24 billion a year on Tylenol, Advil, and all the rest, and yet chronic pain is on the rise. Not only does this tell us that we're literally throwing our money away, but these medicines aren't even working and are in fact, making us worse. 18.8 million Americans are diagnosed with depression and 4 million people consider themselves "unhappy." If they would realize that maybe a bit more laughter in their lives could be their answer, our yearly spending rate on meds would decrease dramatically. Humor and laughter strengthen your immune system, boost your energy, diminish pain, and protect you from the damaging effects of stress. Laughing does a lot more than just make us smile. The divorce rate in America is 50%. Psychologist John Gottman, found that for couples who stay married more than seven years, the absence of laughter predicts divorce far more consistently than the presence of outright animosity. Our relationships are only as good as our histories of laughter together. This proves that a lack of laughter was a cause of many divorce cases. Divorces are expensive and the stress caused by them makes couples spend money on stress medications to cope. And since most of these medications cause more stress, they spend even more money and it becomes a vicious cycle. Poor couples. All they needed was laughter. Happy people make happy marriages, happy marriages make a happy world.

Not only are we putting dents in our wallets, we're putting dents in our bodies. What we have yet to realize is that these meds can very well be the cause of our stress. According to the Journal of the American Medicine Association from March 11, 2009, " when given the approved daily dosage of acetaminophen – a substance present in almost all pain relievers – test subjects developed early signs of possible liver damage." The liver is very capable of regenerating itself, but its capacity to repair itself can be seriously impaired by repeated or extensive damage. Is it really worth getting rid of our headache, or our cough, or our allergies, if every other part of our bodies necessary to live is getting lethally damaged? Live. Love. Laugh. I don't think it's Live. Love. Medicate. Laughing is a crucial ingredient to our well being and without it, we might as well not exist. Sudafed, a common allergy medication contains the same ingredients as the ADHD medication, Adderal. ADHD is a disorder that requires strong medication, so what business do we have taking medicine like that for allergies? And it's not only the long term bodily effects that should convince you to stop depending on over the counter medicine and start laughing, it's side effects too. Many cough medicines stop the coughing, but make you tired, drowsy, restless and shaky.

Why are we spending so much money on medicine and why are we not reading the fine print after purchasing these meds? Blame the media. Yeah, but let's blame ourselves too. Drugs are being advertised around us constantly and unfortunately, we feed into these advertisements. We will listen to what they're saying about their products and we believe it. We get a horrible migraine and go to the pharmacy to pick up a pack of advil. Since we're in so much pain, we don't think twice about popping that pill. We take it immediately and wait for the relief to kick in. Once we feel better, that's all there is to it. This is why we spend so much money on over the counter drugs. They really do work and since we're impatient and want that immediate relief, we're willing to spend whatever amount we need to. Instead of making a cup of green tea, or taking a vitamin, or of course laughing it off, we spend. Just like spending ridiculous amounts of money for immediate relief, we act the same when it comes to our health. Because our cough can go away overnight, we forget about the long-term effects that the medicine can cause. We want a quick solution and once we get it, we don't care about the future. Drugs are harming us because we're forgetting that they are capable of doing so. They're harming us because we've grown too dependent on them and instead of taking them in moderation, we're taking 8 billion pills of Tylenol each year.

What to do about our spending. Here's the best solution. Stop going to the local cvs and buying a bottle of aspirin. Laugh, and laugh until your tummy hurts, until your mouth cramps, until you're crying. Laughing is free! We have nothing to lose when we laugh, but everything to gain. Laughter is truly the strongest medicine for the mind, body and soul. Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict and nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hopes, connects you to others, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert. Until we stop laughing, we will always be happy and healthy. Gordon W. Allport said "So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter." With so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is a great resource for our problems, enhancing our relationships, supporting both physical and emotional health, and of course, saving us a lot of money.

Laughing is the only drug we need because of the benefits it contributes to our health and well-being. Nothing on this earth can help us the way laughter does. It makes us happier people, it relieves stress, it helps us on a bad day, and it's free. Laughter relaxes the body. A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after. It boosts the immune system. It decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease. It also triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain. Laughter protects the heart and improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems. That's a mouth full. There are absolutely no negative affects to laughing. Laughing makes us happy and makes those around us happy as well.

No, laughter will not help the economy, but it helps ourselves and that's something we shouldn't forget. Laughter is the best medicine.

Truth be told

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out. -Anton Chekhov

Kids these days...

The embedding of this video was disabled, so I had to post the link instead. I found this video extremely fascinating and a bit disturbing. We watched it in my psychology class today. It really makes you think, weather it applies to you or not and shows that no one is exempt from prejudice, discrimination and hate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCjDxAwfXV0

Simply having a wonderful Christmas time

I love the holiday season.

The happy-for-no-reason feel everywhere you go, the cold weather, thick coats and scarves, bright Christmas lights and decorations in every corner, shopping, packed shopping malls, trying to find parking for hours, warm smells of cinnamon and apple cider, holiday parties, sequins, glitter, bows, wrapping paper, and every other noun that falls under happy.

It’s the one time of year where it doesn’t matter what race we are, what our social status is, how much money we have, or who we are. Everyone is just happy in harmony and it’s beautiful to see. It’s fascinating how just a certain time of the year can turn billions of frowns upside down. Something just comes over us and we forget about all our troubles. People with no money to buy a Christmas trees or presents for the kids are just happy and constantly smiling, but it’s only during this time of year where people are like this. I wish it was always the holiday season.

I don’t have a point. I just want to say that seeing everyone so happy and coming together makes me happy. There’s just so much negativity around the world and it all just gets erased. I had tall, caramel apple cider from Starbucks the other day and I said it tasted like Christmas in a cup. If I was drinking that in July, I wouldn’t be saying that.

I truly believe with my entire heart that there is magic in the air during the holiday season. I don’t know where it comes from, but I know it’s there and it’s amazing.

The Power of the Situation

Today in my psych class, we watched a video by Philip Zimbardo called “The Power of the Situation”. I’ve mentioned Zimbardo before in my blogs, so I think it’s clear that I find the guy extremely fascinating.

The video is about how certain situations control the way we behave. As a lot of you know already, Philip Zimbardo is the man who conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment in the 70’s. He wanted to see how obedience and conformity play a role in society. A group of college boys volunteered to participate in Zimbardo’s experiment. Half of the boys were prison guards, and half of the boys were prisoners. Most people would say that since it’s just an experiment, they’re not going to act like real prisoners and guards, but little did they know that eventually, this experiment would become a reality.

The guards began force the prisoners to do humiliating things and they would force them to do push ups. These were perfectly nice boys who volunteered to participate in a study, why would they act like that? It’s the power of the situation. When you put someone in a costume and give them a role, they will act that role as if it’s really them without even knowing it. In the beginning, the boys knew it was just a study, so they didn’t take anything to the extreme, but gradually they began to forget that it was just an experiment and started to act as if they really were prison guards.

This mock prison in the Stanford basement was supposed to be open for 2 weeks, but closed after only 6 days because mock inmates began to suffer from psychological problems. As I was watching this video, I really began to think. I was shocked to learn how evil a normal person is capable of being. We will do anything if an authoritative figure tells us to, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong. Take Stanley Milgram’s Electric Shock Experiment. He also wanted to see how obedience and conformity play a role in society. He took a group of people who were oblivious to what Milgram was doing and told them to give a person in another room a shock every time they answer a trivia question incorrectly. It doesn’t seem to bad, but the scary part is that with every wrong answer, the voltage of the shocks increased by about 100 watts. The highest voltage was 440 watts I believe, which is fatal and can cause death, but strangely enough, sinch Milgram, an authoritative figure, told the participants to continue with the voltage, they didn’t stop. The people being shocked would scream in pain, and the participant would still continue because Milgram said to do so. Of course they weren’t really being shocked, but the shockers didn’t know that.

It’s so interesting to hear about things like this because we’re always so shocked and say to ourselves “I would never do that! I would never be that dumb. I’d yell at Milgram and leave the room” that’s actually the exact opposite of what we’d do. For some reason, we put people in positions of authority on pedestals and assume that they know best. This is obedience at its worst. If I was an FBI agent interrogating a suspect, and my boss told me to slap the suspect every time I thought he was lying, I would probably do it because my boss told me to, even though it’s completely wrong.

The situations we get ourselves into have so much power of us we don’t even realize it. We behave differently in every situation we’re in. Whether it’s at school, at home, at the grocery store, or in court, we always act a certain way and it amazes me. We all have the capacity within ourselves to be evil, we just don’t see it until we’re in the situation.

The second point brought up in Zimbardo’s video was conformity. We do this on a day-to-day basis. I do it all the time in my classroom. When the professor asks “how many of you think gay marriage should be legalized?” a certain number will raise their hand, but I’ll keep my hand down until I see how many people raise their hand for the second part of the question, and THEN I’ll make my choice. It’s kind of embarrassing to be the only person raising your hand, but when 15 other people are raising their hands with you, you feel a lot more reassured and you feel confident and like you fit in. That’s why we conform. We don’t realize it, but we do.

I’m not writing this to give solutions on how to fix this, I just hope to enlighten you because it really is fascinating. Humans are so complex and have so many layers to them. We’re all born good, evil is a learned behavior and situations like these are when we’re tested on what we’ve learned. Sadly, most of us fail that test.

This is a test

We finally got a new computer. yay! so i’m just testin the waters out to see if this computer is really as amazing as they say it is.

Eye candy

not so intelligent design

This is the way I see it.

Alright, so let's say we did in fact evolve from apes and we did not start from Adam and Eve. Well, who created those apes? Giraffes??

Come on...

God created those apes, so ultimately, God is the one who created us...which makes intelligent design completely irrelevant!

just for your amusement...

boy, oh boy!

I've never had a boyfriend. In fact, I haven't even had my "first kiss" yet. A lot of might be shocked to read this because by my age, most girls have already lost their virginity. But I am so lucky to be able to say that regardless of the status quo, I don't care. I don't care that I've never had a boyfriend or kissed a guy yet, I'm completely okay and I wish other girls had this mentality too.

The problem with girls these days have the distorted mentality that they need a boy to make them happy and it's ridiculous. It's sad and very wrong. There are thousands of other girls like me out there, but the difference with them is that they get depressed about it. They start thinking that something is wrong with them, they're just cursed, they'll never get a man, and most of all that they'll never be happy. None of that is true. When a girl can't seem to get a guy to like her, it's because there's something way better out there that God has planned for her. No you are not cursed because if God wanted to put a curse on you, he'd make it a lot worse than making you single for life. Yes you WILL get a man, or someone to love, you just need to be patient and remember that everyone has SOMEONE. How can a girl NEVER be happy if she doesn't have a soulmate? There are so many other things that creat happiness. Children, family, friends, playing a board game....we put a limit on happiness. We forget all the things besides being in love that make us happy.

I've had friends that get stuck in bad relationship after bad relationship and end up devoting their entire lives to trying to find the right guy and figuring out what's wrong with them and it's so unimportant. Girls don't need a man to make them happy and we need to realize that. There's nothing wrong with being single, and frankly speaking, it's insulting to ME when I hear girls say "god, I need a man" because I myself am single and am so utterly happy with that and then I see girls complaining about it without even trying to see that being single isn't that bad and we can feel complete and loved by doing and having other things in our lives. I'm not saying it's good to be single, everyone should be allowed to have someone and be married, we just don't need to make it a priority and be disappointed when we don't have a fling. Now, when you can't seem to find a guy to MARRY, that's a horse of a different color! Marriage is completely different than a boyfriend.

Not many people read this, other than my journalism professor, Toni, but I hope that one day girls my age realize the beauty in not having a man by their side or having their first kiss. It's not that bad, trust me, I've been in this spot since birth and I'm completely satisfied with having my close friends and my family in my life.

I'm morbidly obeise...so WHAT?!

Does Tyra Banks promote being unhealthy? I kinda think so...



I think her whole "so what?" movement is appreciable, but I personally don't think EVERYONE should just love their body.



I don't want to make it seem like Tyra Banks doesn't have a good heart or anything, she really does and I think it's amazing that she so badly wants girls to have good self-esteem, it's just silly to me hearing her tell overweight girls on her show that their curves are "sexy" and they should love themselves and not worry about what other people think or say. And it's not just Tyra who's doing this, it's pretty much all of television. Cosmetic companies are starting to use large women in their television commercials to promote their products, and it's good to not discriminate, but when a regular heavy woman sees another heavy woman on tv, she begins to think that it's OKAY to be that heavy.



This to me is a problem. By telling women that all women are fine no matter their size and we need to love ourselves and not be obsessed with looking thin, overweight women start to think that it's okay to be overweight. The media has a lot of power and people don't even realize it. We will listen to ANYONE if they're famous. If Oprah says read a book, we're gonna go and read it because Oprah said so. If Ellen says donate money for breast cancer, we're gonna donate. Tyra says to love your body no matter what, we're gonna love our body no matter what and especially since she's black, which is a minority, overweight people, which are also considered a minority, will be more inclined to listening to her and take what she says too seriously.



Now, I know that Tyra doesn't go to bed thinking she wants to promote obesity and wants people to be unhealthy, of course she doesn't, but I think indirectly, that's what she's achieving. Instead of saying "so what?" she should be saying "be healthy" because that really is the only bodily concern women should have, being healthy. You can be curvy and be healthy and you can be stick thin and still be healthy. The goal should not be for all sizes to just live their lives and love themselves, the goal should be to maintain a healthy lifestyle and be the size they want, as long as their being it healthily (is that a word?)



There was a woman on they Tyra show, I think she was 800 pounds, maybe more...and she was so happy being that weight and was sad to learn that she had lost some weight. Now, if Tyra never started her "so what?" movement, that woman probably wouldn't have been so happy to be unbelievably obeise. I think the so what movement, although has such good intention, is really sending out the wrong message to girls. We should love ourselves, but when we know we're healthy, not when we're over or underweight, because that's wrong.