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October 2012

Good moods or bad moods…they’re contagious

You try avoid picking up germs from someone who is coughing, but when you encounter a person who is in a bad mood, you can just as easily pick up their cranky germs. Moods are contagious.

It's easy to catch a good mood. When you're at work and co-workers have good news about something or someone, they want to share with you. They seem excited as they tell the good news. Everyone is in a better mood.

The contagious quality of mood and emotion has been widely studied as a form of contagion. Without consciously trying, people are very good at picking up on other people's negative or positive emotions.

The situation is called "emotional contagion." The first step involves unconscious copying of facial expressions and movements. Seeing a smile makes you smile, a frown makes you frown.

If you're both frowning, you will tend to start feeling bad too, and share emotions until you are both in the same mood. Mood copying is common when you are in frequent contact with others.

When a friend or co-worker is in a mood, it's more likely that you'll catch it than from a stranger.

Marriage researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that husbands experienced lower marital satisfaction when their wives reported higher stress. Wives were less affected by their husband's stress levels.

Studies emphasize the importance of choosing friends wisely. People who are positive and upbeat can make you feel the same way.

Making home changes that are simple, less expensive

The remodeling trend today focuses on a move to informal living. Home owners want a comfortable and functional place in which to live.

About 61% of people say they work to get the most from their remodeling dollar, says a survey by Better Homes and Gardens. One reason: home equity loans are not as easy to get, so more remodelers are paying with cash savings.

Duo Dickinson, author of Remodel your Home to Get the Home You Want, says these are the most popular projects now.

* Remodelers want to connect with the outdoors with larger windows and with decks and porches.

* The livable kitchen is the new living room. People want to enjoy a lot of different activities there so chairs are being made comfy for lounging. Walk-in pantries replace cabinets, which can block views.

* They want more-open floor plans that connect the kitchen to more than one other room.

* Smaller master baths are a trend. To save space, skip the spa tubs in favor of larger showers and vanities.

* Mudrooms or "drop zones" are popular as home owners work to reduce clutter. If there's no room for a mudroom, creating a "drop zone" for shoes and boots will do.

* Universal design. Baby boomers are building wider doors, which can accommodate wheel chairs, and step-free showers. Because they don't know what their physical conditions will be later in life, they may also widen hallways.

Kris Spears ND ACN HBS Success Coach - (361) 438-7947 - krisaspears@gmail.comBrought to you by: Spears & Associates

Your Helpful Home Tips

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Health in the news

Bad cholesterol (LDL) still trumps the good kind (HDL)

Researchers at Duke University have found that efforts to increase HDL, the good cholesterol, have little effect on lowering cardiovascular disease risk. They were surprised to find that having a high good cholesterol number did not protect against having a heart attack.

The researchers also found that people with very low levels of good cholesterol were more likely to have a heart attack, but efforts to raise HDL didn't make much difference.

At the same time, they say doctors and patients should focus on reducing bad cholesterol numbers with such steps as stopping smoking, controlling blood pressure and blood sugar, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly, and taking a statin if it's recommended.

New class of sleeping pills will prevent next-day drowsiness

A sleeping pill that works like Ambien or Lunesta, but doesn't create next-day drowsiness or disorientation, is every drug-maker's dream.

Merck now thinks it has developed one. Suvorexant works differently from the leading drugs. Rather than boosting the brain's entire sleep system, it uses a precise approach to block a tiny group of receptors that keep the body alert.

About 70 million Americans, one-third of all adults, have trouble either falling or staying asleep, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

Since 2005, other drug makers have had sleep products approved, but they weren't successful because they had serious side effects. That clears the way for Merck's Suvorexant, which is part of a potentially new drug class known as orexin receptor antagonists, says Bloomberg Businessweek.

Lack of sleep can increase stroke risk

Getting six or fewer hours of sleep per night, a new study says, will make you four times more likely to suffer a stroke. Seven to nine hours are recommended, but 30 percent of Americans get six hours or less, according to a recent government study. The new study focuses on people of normal weight and health.

People know how important diet and exercise are in preventing strokes, but they are less aware of the impact of insufficient sleep, according to the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

The number of people who report getting eight hours or more of sleep a night has dropped from 38 percent in 2001 to 28 percent, says the National Sleep Foundation.

Airport checkpoints to get faster

At Love Field in Dallas, 500 high-definition cameras are being installed. They track passengers from the parking garage to gates to the tarmac.

Cameras are part of a plan by the International Air Transport Association, which represents airlines globally. When completed, the plan will allow fliers to move almost non-stop through security from the curb to the gate. It ends repeated security stops and logjams.

After checking luggage, passengers would identify themselves by scanning fingerprints or irises to prove they have an electronic ticket. They would walk with their carry-ons through a screening tunnel, replacing what now happens at as many as three different stops.

Passengers will no longer have to empty carry-ons of liquids and laptops before X-ray scans, and they will be able to keep their belts and shoes on.

Brought To You By

 

Kris Spears ND ACN HBSSuccess Coach

Spears & Associates119 S. 8th Street

Aransas Pass, TX 78336

(361) 438-7947krisaspears@gmail.com

http://BestHealth4U.Isagenix.com

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Spooky Sudoku 

        How to

To solve a sudoku, you only need logic and patience. No math is required. Simply make sure that each 3x3 square region has a number 1 through 9 with only one occurrence of each number. Each column and row of the large grid must have only one instance of the numbers 1 through 9. The difficulty rating on this puzzle is easy.

  

Streusel baked apples sweeten autumn dinners

         There's no better way to enjoy apples as a dessert than as a low-fat baked apple with a few added nutrients. The best apples for baking have a lower sugar content than eating apples and are usually tarter. Most home cooks use Granny Smiths, but test kitchens learned they collapse and turn to mush. Try the Honeycrisp, which retains its shape, texture and full apple flavor, or Rome Beauty, Jonagold, or Spartan. Streusel baked apples 1/3 cup walnuts 1/3 cup pecans chopped medium fine 1/4 cup golden raisins 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon ground pumpkin pie spice 1/4 cup rolled oats 4 tablespoon cold, cubed butter 6 medium Pink Lady apples 1 1/2 cups apple cider Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine walnuts, pecans, raisins, sugar, salt, spices and oats in a small bowl. Add butter cubes and toss. Peel the top third of each apple. Scoop out the stem, seeds and enough of the apple core to leave 1/2-inch thick walls, using a melonballer. Stuff each with filling, mounding it on top. Place in a 2-quart baking dish and pour cider into the pan. Cover the pan with foil. Bake 45 minutes, removing foil every 15 minutes to baste the apples. Remove foil and bake an additional 30 minutes, continuing to baste, until the apples are easily pierced with a sharp knife. Drizzle with sauce from the pan.

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© Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved

Microsoft unveils its new email service The new Outlook.com service aims to reduce email clutter while allowing users to send and receive emails and also connect with peers via outside services, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Add to that, integration with Microsoft's Office Web Apps, SkyDrive, and Skype coming in the near future. It gives business users a taste of what's coming in Outlook 2013.

The new service pushes Microsoft's Hotmail to the back burner as the company tries to increase its share of users. Hotmail presently has 41 million, which makes them third behind Gmail with 68 million and Yahoo Mail with 84 million users.

Social integration is a big part of the experience. You can populate your address book with friends from Facebook, Twitter and others. Status updates and tweets are visible in a side panel, and Microsoft plans to let you make Skype video calls from your inbox.

Outlook.com is tied into free Web versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and One Note, to compete with Google’s feature set.

Blue light from smartphones, tablets interrupts sleep Americans have become so addicted to their smartphones and tablets that many sleep with them. Others keep the devices on the night table, where they can look at them or pick them up to check email or surf the Internet.

The medical community is concerned, because the type of light produced by electronic screens can contribute to sleep loss. After using them or looking at them, it's very difficult to go back to sleep.

Steven Lockley, a Harvard Medical School sleep researcher, says, "Blue light preferentially alerts the brain, suppresses melatonin and shifts our body clock all at the same time. The closer you have a light source to the face, the more intense it is."

Melatonin is a hormone that helps regulate sleep and is not produced during the day.

Kris Spears ND ACN HBS Success CoachSpears & Associates119 S. 8th StreetAransas Pass, TX 78336

(361) 438-7947krisaspears@gmail.comhttp://BestHealth4U.Isagenix.com

Your Helpful Home Tips