Longevity For You

Maintaining Mindfulness While Being Busy

Humans learn how to deal with the pain of loss. As a matter of fact, we learn at an early age that being busy is a way to deal with the loss of a loved one. In other words, many people deal with grief by staying busy.

Last week, my father-in-law passed away, and a memorial service was held last weekend. My wife had been busy preparing for the memorial service, such that she seemed oblivious to her loss.

I must say getting busy has immediate payoff. In life, many of us use the same strategy to deal with difficulties in our lives: we keep ourselves busy to avoid unpleasant or difficult experiences. We keep ourselves busy to earn more money, to gain more respect, or both. We get busier and busier - it has become addictive. Unfortunately, at the end, everything falls apart, and we become distressed and disillusioned.

Be mindful of your busyness. Mindfulness requires you to take time to explore your inner self - that is,  what is most important to you. You can be busy, while maintaining your mindfulness.

A Buddhist teacher once said: "When you are washing dishes, wash dishes. When you are talking on the phone, talk on the phone." But many people are talking on the phone, while driving!

Mindfulness is "concentrated" relaxation because your mind focus on the present moment, not the past, and not the future. Remember, only the present is real to you.

For more information on mental wellness, go to: Mental and Spiritual Wellness.

Stephen Lau

Younger and Healthier for Longer

Miracle Drink for the Diabetic

My wife was diagnosed with diabetes last year. In the first few months, her blood sugar level was high, and in spite of the medications, it fluctuated on the higher end.

Recently, her blood sugar level has come down dramatically with a miracle drink recommended by her friend.

Here is the recipe for that miracle drink for the diabetic:

1 bitter melon (obtainable at any Chinese supermarket).
1 cucumber.
1 green pepper.
2-3 stalks of celery.

Chop all ingredients, and put them in a powerful blender. You may juice them. But I prefer to add one cup of water, and place them in a powerful blender. You get the fiber as well.

This potent drink is excellent for diabetes.

She drinks 2 cups a day, and her blood sugar is now normal without any drugs. Bitter melon is such a potent vegetable that its extracts are now available in supplement and sold over the Internet. My wife has not tried the supplement. I think the natural vegetable drink is much better, especially the celery for controlling high blood pressure (often a symptom of diabetes).

For more information on diabetes, go to The Diabetes Miracle Breakthrough.

Stephen Lau

Younger and Healthier for Longer

Is Alcohol Good For You?

According to CNN (21 April 2009), recent studies show light drinkers are healthier than those who abstain. But they also have higher rates of liver disease.

Alcohol research can be baffling and confusing, with one finding contradicted by the next.

Is alcohol good for you?

"One drink a day for women and no more than two for men is thought to be good for coronary heart disease," said Dr. Samir Zakhari, director of the division of metabolism and health effects at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

And is beer good for you?

Beer may cause your blood sugar to drop drastically, thus stimulating you to eat more.

Beer has about 7 calories per gram of alcohol, which may go right to your stomach, leading to weight gain. One 12-ounce serving of beer every night may add up to an extra 10-15 pounds per year, if you do not burn those extra calories.

Your liver, in the process of detoxifying excess quantities of alcohol, may become filled with fat, resulting in a characteristic “beer belly.” Typically, fat distribution shifts to your belly and trunk, and some men may even grow “female breasts” as estrogen accumulates in their system. If you want to retain your body shape, simply drink less.

If you have problems with alcohol, maybe it is time to quit the addiction.

Stephen Lau

Younger and Healthier for Longer

The Physical Changes of a Calorie-Restriction Diet

Calorie restriction can bring about longevity in animals. Calorie restriction can help you lose weight.

But a calorie-restriction diet may bring about physical changes that affect not only your weight, but also your physical being, in fact your overall wellbeing.

If you are consuming 3000 calories a day, and you start slowly and gradually reduce your caloric intake to 2500 calories. That’s excellent. You kill two birds with one stone: you lose weight and you improve your overall health.

However, an individual needs 2000 calories for optimum health maintenance. If you reduce your calories to 1500, you have put your body in a starvation mode. The diet becomes a starvation diet.  Worse, if your caloric intake falls below 1500 calories to 1000 to 1200 calories

With a reduction of calories, and accompanied by vigorous activity, you can lose up to 20 percent of your body weight. This is what most weight watchers would go for.

However, research studies have documented physical changes resulting from a calorie-restriction diet. These changes include:

• Weight loss of 20 percent

• Decrease in body size, especially in the upper thighs and upper arms

• Reduction in heart volume by about 20 percent, followed by diminished work output of heart per minute by as much as 50 percent, as well as a slower pulse rate

• Reduction in body temperature

• Accumulation of body fluid in the ankle and the wrist.

• General fatigue

• Decline in sexual activities

• Thinner and drier hair

• Frequency of urination

Calories are important to weight loss. Without reduction in calorie intake, there is no weight loss. However, too drastic and too dramatic reduction will have adverse effects on the body. Beware! You need to know How To Eat Less.

Stephen Lau

Younger and Healthier for Longer

Can Calorie Restriction Stop Aging?

Research on animals has indicated that calorie restriction can prolong life.

But is this applicable to humans? Can calorie restriction really stop aging? Scientists do have any consensus opinion, let alone definitive answers.

What is calorie restriction?

Calorie restriction is eating less than what your body needs to maintain health.  Your caloric needs are based several factors, including your height, your weight, and metabolic rates (i.e. the amount of your physical activities.

Say, if you need 2000 calories a day, and you consume only 1600 calories, you are on a calorie restriction diet.

The key question here is not whether it will prolong life. Consuming fewer calories will definitely reduce weight, and weight maintenance is an important factor in longevity, as evidenced by centenarians who are never overweight.

The crucial questions are: Is calorie restriction safe? Do you get adequate nutrients to maintain health for longevity and anti-aging living? How much less should you eat?

Nobody has the answers because your constitution and makeup are uniquely yours. Only you can tell what your body needs. The bottom line is: simply eat less. As for anti-aging and longevity, leave that to your Creator.

Stephen Lau

Younger and Healthier for Longer

Why Routines Are Important to Longevity Health

Routines are an integral part of longevity living, and hence critically important to longevity health.

Why is that?

Routines put you in a positive state of mind: it makes you not only more mindful of what you are doing, but also more likely to become more disciplined. Without discipline, it is difficult in this day and age to have a healthy lifestyle leading to longevity, given that we are living in a society of excess and indulgence.

When you wake up in the morning, what do you do? And how do you spend your time? Be mindful of what you do. If you have no real control over the various things you do regularly, you most probably have poor time management.

Learn to organize your daily routines, making doubly sure they contribute to your longevity health, such as exercising and having a nutritional breakfast. Other things like reading the papers and checking your computer are not important to your daily routines, especially in the morning.

Changing your habits is setting good routines for longevity health. Routines prepare your mind for what is ahead of you in the day. Depressed individuals often lack routines in their lives. Learn to control your mind in order to control your body. Rethink your thinking to become younger and healthier for longer!

Stephen Lau

All About Stephen Lau

Meditation Is Medicine!

Meditation is mind-body medicine. It is the most potent mind-body therapy not only for disease prevention but also for curing disease.

Meditation has been associated with religion because during meditation it is easy to conjure up images of divinity or the metaphysical. However, nowadays, in this world of stress and turmoil, meditation therapy is getting attention in the medical field.

Meditation is medicine in that your mind controls your thoughts, which control your actions, and your actions are often responsible for your health. Contemporary life is stressful, in particular in the present economic environment, which generates emotional reaction, anxiety, anticipation, and worry. Naturally and inevitably, your mind focuses on the past or the future, or both. The past is the breeding-ground for stress: your memories of past difficulties or failures are projected into the future, which become real and almost tangible to you.

Remember, in life, nearly all your thoughts, including your desires and fears, are based on either the past or the future. These festering thoughts may begin to feed on the mind, generating negative emotions that affect your hormone secretion, and thus affecting your overall health.

Meditation is medicine in that it provides a break or relaxation for your thinking mind. Your body needs rest, and so does your mind. It is a myth that when you sleep, your mind is resting. No, it is not, because your mind still works in your dreams.

Meditation is mind-body therapy because it helps you focus your mind on the present to the exclusion of past and future thoughts.

Meditation is actually easier than your might imagine. Start meditation by paying attention to your breathing. There is no right or wrong way of meditation. Just practice it. Go to my web page Meditation Techniques to learn how to meditate to enhance your health. Meditation makes you younger and healthier for longer.

Stephen Lau

All About Stephen Lau

 

 

Green Tea Makes You Younger and Healthier for Longer!

Scientific studies have shown that polyphenols in green tea, in particular EGCG and ECG (which are naturally occurring compounds in plants to protect them from damage due to free radicals, bacteria, disease, and insect), help you look younger for longer. Green tea is loaded with polyphenols.

 Looking younger requires healthy skin. The sun, the gravitational pull of the earth, free radicals from the environment, and a poor diet may affect how your skin may look. The beauty and health of your skin is determined by collagen, a protein substance in your skin responsible for giving structure and support of the outer layer of your skin.

 As you age, your skin produces less elastin, a substance that controls your skin’s elasticity and smoothness.

 To keep you forever younger, drink green tea daily – and make you own green tea. Remember, not all green teas are created equal. Go to Green4Tea, where you will get everything you need to know about green tea (including weight loss, healthy heart, cholesterol and blood pressure control etc.) to make you younger and healthier for longer. Green tea is loaded with antioxidants and polyphenols – the Chinese have been drinking it for thousands of years to keep them younger, just as they have been using ginseng to make them healthier.

 To keep you younger and healthier for longer, you need knowledge, and knowledge is empowering. Go to: Younger and Healthier Super Store to get digital information on every aspect of health – physical health, mental health, emotional health, intellectual health, and spiritual health –  to make you younger and healthier for longer.

 Stephen Lau

 All About Stephen Lau

Cure Cancer with Mint Leaves

Mint is a fragrant herb that contains important ingredient with potential capability to cure cancer. As a matter of fact, mint has become important medicinally due to its ingredients, which promote digestion by stimulating the flow of bile to your stomach. Mint has been called “the plant of happiness” for a good reason.

But can mint leaves really cure cancer? It is still a controversy among research scientist.

In 2004, researchers in the United Kingdom found that an extract in the leaves of mint can combat cancer. This groundbreaking medical discovery initiated the developing of drugs to see if mint can fight human breast and lung cancers. Research is still ongoing.

The important finding is that mint herb has the medicinal potential of destroying only those blood vessels that promote the growth of cancerous cells, but without damaging the blood vessels of normal cells. This selective targeting of cancerous cells may be a groundbreaking discovery for scientists to use mint leaves to target cancerous cells without damaging normal cells. Conventional cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy, are invasive in that they indiscriminately target both cancerous and normal cells.

According to researchers from the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research of the United Kingdom, the extract (scutellaria barbata) from mint leaves has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries to treat tumors..

Visit my web pages: Cancer Treatment Resources and Herbal Cures.  Also, The Herbal Remedy Cures Handbook is excellent for herbal remedies. Remember, pharmaceuticals are dangerous.

Stephen Lau

All About Stephen Lau

Tips on Buying Ginseng

Ginseng is readily available in drug and health food stores all over the United States. However, finding the right ginseng may be challenging.

How to buy your ginseng

You need to determine the type of ginseng: American, Chinese, Japanese, or Korean?

You need to decide on the form of ginseng: root, tablet, powder, or tincture?

You need to know what you are getting for the money you pay: the quality or the grade.

Asian ginseng is the classical ginseng, which is most effective as a restorative tonic for long-term health and wellness: it regulates blood pressure, enhances mental health, control diabetes, suppresses stress, and counteracts alcohol and drugs. Asian ginseng is anti-aging.

American ginseng balances the body metabolism and reduces stress. American ginseng does not have the reputation for revitalizing the body and enhancing overall health and wellness as the Asian counterpart does.

Korean ginseng is well regulated by the government, so the quality is comparable to that of Chinese ginseng. The best Korean ginseng is red ginseng.

Japanese ginseng is of average quality compared to that of Chinese and Korean ginseng.

When you buy ginseng, consider the following:

Age: The older the root of the ginseng at the time of harvest, the more expensive it is. The age can range from 6 to 12 years. Anything younger than 4 years is not recommended. Ginsenosides, the most important ingredient in ginseng, are accumulated in the root over time. The age of the root is determined by the number of ridges or scars in the root.

Color: Only better-quality ginseng roots are selected for steaming to enhance the medicinal value of the roots. When they are steamed, the color turns from white or pale yellow to reddish.

Texture: Good-quality ginseng is hard and brittle, and the texture is dense.

Taste: Ginseng has a bitter, robust taste, with a tinge of sweetness.

Shape: A good ginseng root has the shape of a man: straight with intertwined rootlets or branches. Curled roots are inferior in quality.

The first choice in buying ginseng is to buy the whole root. Other than that, you can get standardized ginseng extract in tablets, capsules, or tinctures. Standardization is a way of processing ginseng that guarantees a certain fixed amount of ginsenosides in every dose. Buy products with concentrations of 4 to 7 percent of ginsenosides.  Tinctures are concentrated alcohol extracts, and therefore are readily absorbed by the body.

Remember, getting top-quality ginseng makes you younger and healthier for longer.

Stephen Lau

All About Stephen Lau