9 Ways to Increase Energy

1. Maintain adequate hydration: While it used to be said that the average sedentary person should drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day, this has come into question. Some experts say that this includes foods that contain water. In addition, while the thirst mechanism is said to kick in when it is too late, there is also some question about this. Exercise, heat and other variables also affect how much water one should drink. Thus, all I can offer is a personal reflection which is: when I want to increase my energy, I sometimes drink water and this seems to bring me back to life even when I have not consciously recognized that I am thirsty.

2. Diet: The best personal experience I can offer here is: get that breakfast in. Skipping breakfast is tempting when one is on the go, but breakfast is a very important meal and just eating breakfast can make you feel much more energetic throughout the day. I do love satisfying meals, but I find that if I do not keep my lunch light, I feel an energy drain in the afternoon. I have often thought that siestas were a good idea, but this doesn’t really fit in with most of our lifestyles.

3. Meditation: I have noticed that meditating twice a day for at least 20 minutes at a time significantly increases my energy. My thought processes seem to be more efficient.

4. Short naps: A short nap in the middle of the day (5-10 minutes) can do wonders. Some research has shown that 60-minute power naps can be very restorative but a usual day for me does not allow this.

5. Music: For me, listening to music that I love on the way to work gives me a much needed energy boost. Sometimes, having the radio on and suddenly hearing a song I love gives me a thrill and euphoria that lasts throughout the day.

6. Exercise and regular stretching: I find that when I exercise, I usually feel more energetic, especially directly after exercising. A brief stint of dancing or going for a walk can also help.

7. Concentrating: Getting absorbed in my work allows me to focus and this focus seems to decrease my energy requirements. When I am more scattered, this is also more draining. Thus, focus is not just a result of having more energy but it can increase energy as well.

8. Giving: Giving a loved one a little gift can be such an energizing experience. Any random act of kindness can be energizing. Receiving can also be wonderful when the opportunity arises.

9. Letting go of negative mind states: Addressing anger and forgiving can be wonderful ways to suddenly enhance energy. Often, our brains are drained by something that has been unaddressed. The anticipation is worse than the event. When something is troubling you, address it as soon as you can. This will cause great relief and a surge of energy.

What Surprising Exercise Cuts Your Cancer Risk by 40 Percent?

Men with stronger muscles from regular weight training are up to 40 percent less likely to die from cancer, according to new research.

The findings suggest that muscular strength is as important as staying slim and eating healthy when it comes to protecting your body against deadly tumors.

A team of experts tracked the lifestyles of over 8,500 men for more than two decades. Each volunteer had regular medical check ups that included tests of their muscular strength. The men who regularly worked out with weights and had the highest muscle strength were between 30 percent and 40 percent less likely to lose their life to a deadly tumor.

Even among volunteers who were overweight, regular weight training seemed to have a protective effect, although the researchers stressed that keeping a healthy weight was still crucial for avoiding premature death.

But they added, "In the light of these results, it is equally important to maintain healthy muscular strength levels.”

Researchers said it’s possible to reduce cancer mortality rates in men by promoting resistance training involving the major muscle groups at least two days a week.

Sources:

The Telegraph May 26, 2009

Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention 18, 1468, May 1, 2009



Dr. Mercola's Comments:

The results of this study -- that men who regularly work out with weights and have high muscle strength can reduce their risk of cancer by 30-40 percent -- should provide major motivation for any of you still on the fence about adding strength training to your exercise routine.

One of the primary reasons exercise works to lower your cancer risk is because it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.

It’s also been suggested that apoptosis (programmed cell death) is triggered by exercise, causing cancer cells to die.

It is becoming increasingly clear that a well-rounded exercise program is an important component of staying healthy. When I say “well rounded” I mean a program that includes the four primary types of exercise, as explained in my Principles of Exercise video:

1. Aerobic
2. Interval
3. Strength
4. Core

Unfortunately, many public health guidelines are still focusing only on the aerobic component, and merely focusing on aerobic activity will most definitely lead to imbalances that will cause other parts of your body to not be healthy. You really need a well balanced exercise regimen.

It’s important to vary your exercise routine as otherwise your muscles simply get used to the same activity. They require a level of muscle confusion if they are to continue to improve and grow stronger. Further, each type of exercise has very different and very specific impacts on your body, and you’ll want to take advantage of all of them.

This topic is truly very near and dear to my heart, as I went to medical school in large part because I wanted to use exercise as a therapeutic tool to help people get healthier. I strongly believe that without fitness, it is virtually impossible to achieve optimal health.

The Benefits of Strength Training

As you age your muscle mass diminishes, and strength training is one of the best ways to replace the lean muscle mass that you’ve lost. If you don’t challenge your muscles in this way, the percentage of fat in your body will keep increasing while your muscle mass will keep decreasing.

So strength training is of utmost importance as you get older, but should ideally be done regularly throughout your life to both preserve and enhance your muscle mass.

Strength training also offers these additional benefits:

• Increases your bone density while lowering your risk of osteoporosis
• Lose weight (the more muscle you have, the more efficiently your body burns calories)
• Protects your joints from injury
• Helps maintain flexibility and balance
• Improves your stamina and lessens fatigue

How to Use Strength Training for Optimal Benefits

Contrary to popular belief, a 1-set strength training routine is typically plenty to get the most out of your workout.

A study published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise confirmed that for the average person exercising by strength training, the number of repetitions (the number of times a muscle or group of muscles is used to lift a weight) is not of major importance; a single set of repetitions was found to be almost as effective in maintaining fitness as three sets.

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) -- the largest sports medicine and exercise science organization in the world -- and the U.S. Surgeon General have also been recommending a 1-set exercise program for some time.

So incorporating a simple 1-set, five- to 30-minute weight lifting routine into your regular program will definitely improve fitness, and is a practical, obtainable goal for most people. There are some key concepts to keep in mind, however, as not just any set of weight training will do.

You need to do enough repetitions to exhaust your muscles. The weight should be heavy enough that this can be done in fewer than 12 repetitions, yet light enough to do a minimum of four repetitions. It is also important NOT to exercise the same muscle groups every day. They need at least two days of rest to recover, repair and rebuild -- more is not better here.

Later this year I plan on introducing a comprehensive state of the art comprehensive personal training option that can easily guide you through this entire process.

How to Round Out Your Exercise Routine, and Why You Should

I highly recommend finding a personal trainer to help you reach your fitness goals, but if you cannot afford it or live in an area without access to one, you can still reap the benefits of exercise if you focus on varying your routine. So along with your strength training program, make sure you also incorporate the following into your exercise routine:

1. Aerobic: Jogging, using an elliptical machine, and walking fast are all examples of aerobic exercise. As you get your heart pumping, the amount of oxygen in your blood improves, and endorphins, which act as natural painkillers, increase.

Meanwhile, aerobic exercise activates your immune system, helps your heart pump blood more efficiently, and increases your stamina over time.

2. Interval (Anaerobic) Training: Research is showing that the BEST way to condition your heart and burn fat is NOT to jog or walk steadily for an hour. Instead, it’s to alternate short bursts of high-intensity exercise with gentle recovery periods.

This type of exercise, known as interval training or burst type training, can dramatically improve your cardiovascular fitness and fat-burning capabilities.

For example, intermittent sprinting produces high levels of chemical compounds called catecholamines, which allow more fat to be burned from under your skin within the exercising muscles. The resulting increase in fat oxidation increases weight loss. So, short bursts of activity done at a very high intensity can help you reach your optimal weight and level of fitness, in a shorter amount of time.

3. Core Exercises: Your body has 29 core muscles located mostly in your back, abdomen and pelvis. This group of muscles provides the foundation for movement throughout your entire body, and strengthening them can help protect and support your back, make your spine and body less prone to injury and help you gain greater balance and stability.

Exercise programs like Pilates and yoga are great for strengthening your core muscles, as are specific exercises you can learn from a personal trainer.

Ready to Get Started?

More than half of U.S. adults don’t get the recommended amount of exercise, and one out of four don’t exercise at all.

Why?

A lack of time is the most common reason given for not exercising.

To help avoid falling into this trap, you need to arrange your schedule around exercise. Plan it into your day the same way you would an important meeting and consider it non-negotiable, like mealtimes and sleep.

When you begin to view exercise as a necessary component to your health, rather than a luxury, it becomes easier to find time for it during even the busiest days. For you, the best time to exercise may be first thing in the morning. Others may find early afternoon to work best.

The important key to remember is that it doesn’t matter when you exercise (with the exception of exercising too close to bedtime, which can keep you awake), just that you make time for it most days of the week.

For more information on how to get the most benefits from exercise, including proper intensity and duration, read through this comprehensive article Exercise to Improve Your Body and Brain.

THE PARROT FLOWER

This is a flower from Thailand . It is also a protected species and not allowed to be exported. This will be the only way we will be able to view this flower.

THE VERY RARE PARROT FLOWER.





WHO BUT GOD COULD DO THIS?

HINDI KA NA MANANALO, ERAP

(saw this one from Facebook)

Ang mga magulang ko ay mula sa lalawigan. Ang aking ama ay dating OFW. Ang aking ina ay dating guro. Hindi kami kilalang pamilya. At higit sa lahat, hindi kami nabibilang sa tinatawag na middle class.

Kaya bilang isang uring masa, ito ang masasabi ko sa'yo, Dating Pangulong Estrada--hindi ka na mananalo sa 2010 sa mga sumusunod na dahilan:

1) Hindi ka na nakakatawa. Kung Erap jokes din lang, mas maraming mas nakakatawang jokes sa internet.

2) Hindi ka na nakakaaliw. Pansinin mo ang mga palabas sa TV. Puro koreanovela na. Puro teleserye na. Puro gwapo at magaganda ang artista. Laos na ang sitcom. Laos na ang action. Laos na ang style mo. Pangit ka na. Kasing-pangit ka na ng anak mong si Jinggoy.

3) Hindi ka pa rin nag-aahit. Simula noong 9-11, lahat ng may bigote ay pinaghihinalaan ng terorista. Mukha kang terorista.

4) Hindi ka pa rin marunong mag-ingles. Sa dami ng pamilyang may anak, ama, ina at kapatid na naghahanapbuhay sa call centers, ang wikang ingles ay hindi na isang kapritsuhan. Isa na itong lehitimong daan para makawala ang isang pamilya sa kahirapan. Kung hindi ka marunong mag-ingles, dadapo at dadapo sa isip ng masa na kung sa call center nga ay hindi ka matatanggap, paano pa kaya bilang pangulo ng republika?

5) Hindi ka nagfa-Facebook. Hindi ka nagtwee-Tweeter. Hindi mo naa-update ang mga tagahanga mo. Hindi ka magkakaroon ng milyung-milyung followers. Kung wala ka sa internet, you don't exist. Gets?

6) Hindi mo kamukha si Barack Obama. Kahit ang running mate mong si Binay, kakulay man ni Obama, ay malayong-malayo ang itsura. Iba na ang hinahanap na 'wangis sa mga pulitiko ngayon. Kung ganyan din lang itsura ninyong mag-running mate--isang baboy at isang matsing--salamat na lang. Kay Chiz Escudero na lang ako.

7) Hindi ka na sariwa. Sinipa ka na. Nakulong ka na. Napaglumaan ka na. Kahit naman ubod ng hirap ang isang tao, hindi mawawala ang kanyang dignidad sa sarili. Hindi siya kakain ng panis. Panis ka na.

8) Hindi ka na natuto. Masyado kang bilib sa sarili. Halatang lagi kang absent sa eskwela noong nag-aaral ka pa. You don't know your history. You don't know when to quit. Kayabangan ang nagpahamak kay Napoleon. Kayabangan ang nagpalubog kay Kublai Khan. Kayabangan ang nagpataob kay Haring Darius III. Mayabang ka. Kaya matatalo ka.

9) Hindi ka na nagbago ng istilo. Diyan nalaos si Michael Jackson. Diyan nalaos si Boy George. Diyan nalaos si Cindy Lauper. Diyan din malalaos si Lady Gaga. Sa panahon ngayon, kung hindi ka magbabago ng imahe, tapos ang fifteen minutes of fame mo. Tapos ka na. Noong 2001 pa.

10) Hindi na kami bobo. Hindi na kami tanga. Hindi na kami nagpapaloko. 'Yan ang tandaan mo.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=187183706367&id=1259797117&ref=nf

Why many Filipinos are like Jason Bourne

Opinion
Why many Filipinos are like Jason Bourne
AS I WRECK THIS CHAIR By William M. Esposo Philstar: Updated May 24, 2009 12:00 AM

Actor Matt Damon’s portrayal of the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) programmed assassin Jason Bourne was such a box office success that it became a movie trilogy — The Bourne identity, The Bourne supremacy and The Bourne ultimatum.

Jason Bourne, the movie character, was a patriot who wanted to serve his country and save American lives. His patriotic zeal was taken advantage of by the CIA when they indoctrinated him to be a programmed assassin. The CIA erased Jason Bourne’s recollection of his real identity and transformed him into a killing machine of sorts.
What his programmers did not anticipate was that Bourne’s humanity would override his destructive programming. He sensed that he was not doing a noble mission. Bourne started to ask questions and seek the truth about his past. He wanted to liberate and rescue his soul.

Many Filipinos are familiar with the character of Jason Bourne after having watched at least one of the three Bourne movies. However, many Filipinos might not have realized that they too are suffering from the problem of Jason Bourne.

Like Jason Bourne, many Filipinos do not know their real history. Jason Bourne succeeded though in sorting out his problem. Bourne had finally caught up with what made him a programmed assassin of the CIA while many Filipinos continue to remain clueless about how we were programmed to collectively fail by former and current masters.
Jason Bourne may have been a fictional character but his struggle is a realistic portrayal of human suffering resulting from not knowing one’s history. The people who created Jason Bourne did not want him to know who made him a programmed assassin. They just want him to continue killing for them.

Like Jason Bourne, the colonizers and the neo-colonizers that brought us Filipinos to our current sorry state do not want us to know who they are and what they did to us. You can’t solve a problem that you’re not even aware of. Like Jason Bourne, it serves the interests of those who brought us to this pass — to keep us in the dark and thus continue to exploit us.
After Jason Bourne became a rogue programmed assassin and started to ask dangerous questions, his CIA programmers activated other programmed assassins to hunt and eliminate him. Like Jason Bourne and his fellow programmed assassins, Filipinos have been calibrated to fight one another in keeping with the old doctrine for imperial control — divide and rule.

Jason Bourne was indoctrinated to murder anyone tagged by his programmers as an “enemy of the state” and this included his fellow Americans who just happened to be ‘inconvenient’ to the CIA. Bourne was programmed not to discern why he is going to kill a designated target.

Like Jason Bourne, many Filipinos have been programmed to despise and reject fellow Filipinos identified as “enemies of the state” by the colonizers and the current neo-colonizers – the Filipino oligarchs. Over the last 200 years, the tag “enemy of the state” has been programmed into the Filipino psyche as “rebolusyonaryo,” “Katipunero,” “Communist,” “militant,” “destabilizer” and “anachronistic nationalist.”

Few Filipinos wonder how come it is legal here to promote foreign interests and illegal to protect Filipino interests. Few Filipinos wonder why it is considered bad over here to be a nationalist when other countries admire and honor their nationalists.

Many Filipinos will automatically dismiss what the so-called “enemies of the state” are fighting for without even analyzing if these are causes that they too should be fighting for. If the so-called ‘militants’ are protesting the ceding of our precious mining resources to foreigners, many Filipinos fail to realize that this is their resources and unthinkingly become apathetic to the issue.

We fail to consider that just because we do not believe in Communism — it does not mean that Filipinos who are associated with it have no valid ideas to contribute to improve our lives. If you care to study the analyses of the Leftist groups of the Philippine socio-economic- political problems, you will find that these are correct assessments.
It is a fact that the root causes of our problems are imperialism (as exemplified by the US Parity Rights, the US-sponsored Marcos martial law, the US interest to push the MILF-BJE deal and China’s taking over of Philippine natural resources) and feudalism (political warlords and dynasties rule many provinces and districts). It is a fact that we suffer from a big Wealth Gap where too few have too much and too many have too little.
Where we differ with the Left is their offered solution. After Russia and China have veered away from it and became capitalists, Communism is now an even harder sell. If we did not buy it four decades ago, we are certainly not going to buy it now.

However, when the Leftists are advocating nationalism, patriotism, preservation of Philippine natural resources, asserting Philippine sovereignty and the like — do we reject these simply because the advocates are Leftists? Because the devil quotes scripture, do we then also reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

In this regard, Jason Bourne is a hero because he had a soul that questioned if his program was just and moral. He changed from a programmed assassin to the man who was able to expose a devious CIA murder program.

In the third Bourne movie, David Webb (Bourne’s real name) reminded the other programmed assassin (who was about to shoot him) to search his soul. The other programmed assassin did not even know why he was tasked to kill Jason Bourne.
It is high time that we Filipinos start searching our Filipino souls and find out why we are in this seemingly perpetual hell. We should know what brought us to hell and who were the persons responsible for all the exploitation, predation and prostitution of our people?

* * *
Chair Wrecker website: www.chairwrecker. com

Mirror of Eternity

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance!
And transform your whole being into the image of the Godhead Itself
through contemplation!
So that you too may feel what His friends feel
as they taste the hidden sweetness
which God Himself has reserved
from the beginning
for those who love Him.

~ St. Clare of Assisi

(This is just of the cool posts from http://megansspark.blogspot.com that I wanted to share)

Konting disiplina naman oh, kung pwede lang??

Kahapon nung nasa jeep na ako galing sa Alabang, may nakasakay akong babae - sabihin na nating nasa late 40's at early 50's ang edad niya, umiinom ng tubig sa plastic bottle, nung naubos na niya yung iniinom niya, bigla na lang niyang tinapon yung bote sa gitna ng highway habang umaandar kami!! Grr... Hindi pa ba siya nadala sa nangyari noon kay Ondoy??? Hay nako... Ang mga tao nga naman.. Oh mga Pinoy lang?? Ang wala talagang disiplina. At pagkatapos, kapag may nangyari na namang masama sa atin, sino ang sisisihin natin??? Haaaaayyy nako....

Konting disiplina naman oh, kung pwede lang??